National Highway Safety Act of 2003
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Read twice and referred to the Committee on Environment and Public Works. (text of measure as introduced: CR S16130-16132)
December 9, 2003
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Introduced in Senate
December 9, 2003
Sponsor introductory remarks on measure. (CR S16128-16130)
December 9, 2003
Read twice and referred to the Committee on Environment and Public Works. (text of measure as introduced: CR S16130-16132)
December 9, 2003
Floor Debate
18 membersWhat members said about S. 1993 on the floor
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Floor Debate
18 membersWhat members said about S. 1993 on the floor
Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded. The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Chafee.) Without objection, it is so ordered. Mr. President, as Senator Inhofe has…
Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Chafee.) Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. President, as Senator Inhofe has already stated, our staffs worked hard over the weekend on amendments people have to this most important legislation. We have gone over many amendments, but have approved 34 amendments we would accept. These are good amendments. They have been reviewed closely by both the majority and minority. A lot of progress has been made. We hope people who have problems with the substance of this legislation, who want to offer amendments, will come and talk to us about it today. We are arriving at a point where there is not going to be a lot of time. Tomorrow we hope to be in a position to do the managers' package--the finance, transit, and EPW aspects of the legislation--and move forward, but we hope Senators who have concern about the legislation will come forward so we can move more quickly. We are running out of time on this very important legislation.
Medicare and Prescription Drugs
Mr. President, in 1965, when Congress created Medicare to provide health care security for our senior citizens, it took less than a year for that to be considered and then put into full operation; in fact, 11 months. That was back before we had computers. All we had then were slide rulers and some adding machines.
On the legislation with which we are dealing now, the new Medicare prescription drug benefit, the new Medicare revision, we have a different situation. We are told this legislation we passed--and that was signed by the President and deals with our senior citizens--is going to have to wait for more than 2 years before it can be implemented. Today our senior citizens need help with soaring drug prices. They deserve the security of knowing they will be able to buy the medicine that can keep them healthy and happy. The American people want to know that when their Government wants to get things done, it can act quickly.
This law is a bad deal for senior citizens. That is why the main provisions of this legislation won't take effect until after the election. That is wrong. I suppose the administration thought our senior citizens would be grateful a bill passed, no matter what was in it, and that they wouldn't bother to find out what was in it. But they did find out. They already know. The President has underestimated our seniors.
I have met with seniors throughout the State of Nevada, and they know what is in this law. They don't like it. I read on the floor last week a meeting that was held by people from the State of Nevada to describe what is in this bill.
More than a hundred people showed up and all hundred were there to complain about this legislation. They don't like the fact that this will make many of them pay more for their drugs than they already have to pay. They don't like the fact that many who have drug coverage under private plans could lose their benefits because of this legislation. They don't like the provision in the law that forbids Medicare from negotiating with drug companies to get better prices. Insurance companies can do it and HMOs can do it. But Medicare--the largest health care delivery unit in the world--cannot negotiate with the drug companies to get lower prices.
Instead of working with Congress to address these and other concerns, the President has threatened to veto any change. Then he turned to his reelection campaign and asked them to help polish the image of this new Medicare law. So a company that is part of the President's reelection campaign is now doing the ads even with Medicare.
Fair enough, you might say. That is politics. Except the President is waging this ad campaign at taxpayers' expense. Simply, that is not fair. I am told he is planning to raise $200 million for his campaign this year. But apparently that is not enough because the administration is spending as much as $22 million of the taxpayers' money for this publicity campaign.
I have no doubt that senior citizens need information about this new Medicare law, and education and awareness about a new program is a legitimate use of taxpayer dollars; but these ads they are pushing are misleading. They don't tell seniors what they need to know about the bill. These ads don't shoot straight with the American people. They give our senior citizens false assurances, not facts.
For example, the ads reassure seniors that they can keep their Medicare coverage and the right to choose their own doctor. But the fact is many seniors, including many in Nevada, could be forced into demonstration programs that will make them pay higher premiums if they want to stay in traditional Medicare, and they will not be able to choose their own doctor.
In the same fashion, the ads don't mention that seniors will be prohibited from using their own money to purchase supplemental coverage to fill the gaps in the new law.
As part of this advertising campaign, the administration is also running print advertisements. I was surprised and perplexed when I saw an ad in the newspaper that runs on Capitol Hill, Roll Call. This newspaper is aimed at Senators, House Members, and Capitol Hill staff, and it is also aimed at lobbyists and so-called Washington insiders. If the President is trying to educate senior citizens about this new law, why would they place ads in Washington newspapers where less than 3 percent of the readership is over age 65? It is for obvious reasons.
The last straw was when I learned these ads are being produced by the same company that makes President Bush's campaign commercials. But that makes sense because they are simply campaign commercials--except his campaign isn't paying for them; you are, the American taxpayers.
These ads are political and that is clear. They are not intended to help seniors understand this complicated
Medicare law. They are intended to offset the negative public reaction to this bad law.
The President has every right to defend this law, which he urged Congress to pass, but he doesn't have the right to make the taxpayers pay for it.
Mr. President, again, I see my friend from North Dakota, who has an amendment, and he has been waiting to get a vote on it. I hope the Senator from North Dakota will get a vote on it soon.
I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.
Madam President, I was in this Chamber just a few days ago singing the laurels of my friend from Arizona and saying what a fine man I thought he was, what great work he did on campaign finance reform. I was basically talking about my deep respect and admiration for the senior Senator from Arizona.
Having said that, it does not mean I have to agree with everything he says. I have to say, with the deepest respect, that on this issue he is simply wrong.
There are certain things we have to do in this country that are logical and, over the long term, make a great deal of sense. We have a national highway transportation system started by President Dwight D. Eisenhower. The simple fact that the interstate system has been completed, meaning all of the interstate system is finished, all the connecting points have been made in this great puzzle, does not mean we have obligations that cease with highways in this country.
We not only have a national highway transportation system, we also have a national security system. The State of Nevada contributes greatly to the security of this country. We have Nellis Air Force Base, which is the largest and most important fighter training center in the world for our Air Force. We have in the northern part of the State the Fallon Naval Air Training Center, which is the most important part of the fighter training facility for our U.S. Navy. It is so important. People in that desert learn to fly landing on carriers.
We started in Nevada the great work that has been done on unmanned vehicles, military vehicles, the drones, at Indian Springs. We store thousands of tons of ammunition at Hawthorne Ammunition Depot. People from all over the country--the State of North Carolina, the State of Arizona, the State of Vermont, the State of Oklahoma, all over the country--contribute to taking care of those military facilities. The State of Nevada cannot afford to do it all. The taxpayers in Nevada do not pay for those bases even though there is a cyclical spinoff that is important to the State of Nevada. The State of Nevada depends on the American taxpayers to make sure those civilian and military employees at those most important bases are taken care of.
I am the only Member who is in the Chamber who is on the Appropriations Committee. When we work for military construction projects at Nellis Air Force Base, Fallon, and other bases I mentioned, those construction projects are paid for by American taxpayers. People from all over the country make their tax payments. It comes to this Congress, and it is decided that Nellis Air Force Base needs new hangars or needs to buy some new land so that the people around the base are not bothered. That is all paid for by American taxpayers. It doesn't come equally from Nevada. The Congress does not say: As soon as you get enough money in taxes to come from the State of Nevada, we will build that new hangar for the F-20s. That isn't how it works. The same applies to our National Highway System.
I am disappointed that the staff of the good Senator from Arizona did not at least listen to what I said, Senator Inhofe said, Senator Jeffords, and Senator Bond said last Monday. I talked at that time about how this bill is so much more fair than bills in years past.
Just a few years ago, there were some States that were only able to keep 75 cents out of every dollar they contributed into the highway trust fund for their own States. The rest of it went to other places. But a decision was made, and it was not an easy decision--the Senator from Arizona knows around here you count votes, and when you have enough votes to get something passed, you pass it. In years past, people counted votes around here. When they found they could get to 60 votes, sometimes 51, the legislation was jammed through this body. That is why some States wound up not getting very much on the money they paid into the highway trust fund.
When the Senator from Arizona talks about this being pork--and we have talked about that here quite a bit--this bill is basically paid for by the highway trust fund. It is paid for by the fact of when people go to buy a gallon of gasoline, they put money into a trust fund, and we are using those moneys now to distribute among the States. We were a little bit short to cover everything that needed to be done in this bill, so in conjunction with the majority and the minority and members of this administration, we said, we are not going to raise any taxes but we are going to readjust some of the taxes that are already in existence, and we did that to make up a small part of our highway bill.
To talk about pork and people are sick of money being spent--I didn't vote for the Medicare bill. I agree with him, that was a bad deal. You cannot come out here with one big paintbrush and paint everything the same. Why is this country in such deep trouble with deficit? It has very little to do with domestic discretionary spending. We could today eliminate the FBI, close all the prisons in the country, close the Department of Agriculture, Environmental Protection Agency, close the Congress, close the Supreme Court, close the Executive Office of the President, and we would still be in deficit. We simply do not have enough money coming into the Government to cover the expenses. Domestic discretionary spending--you can eliminate it all, and we still could not balance the budget.
The fact is, because of the tax cuts that have taken place over the years, we don't have enough money coming in to cover this. That is why last year we had a budget deficit in excess of $500 billion. This next year will be higher than that. It is not domestic discretionary spending. Especially don't pick on the highway trust fund, don't pick on the highway bill.
From everything I have understood, all of the President's statements about not liking the highway bill have nothing to do with the Senate version of the bill. It is what they are talking about doing in the House. They want to spend more money than what we are spending. The President has not directed any of his comments to the Senate version of the bill, as far as I know, and I think I pretty much know.
I know the good Senator from Oklahoma was on Fox News today explaining that point.
I will yield for a question.
Was that a question?
I am sorry. I missed the question.
Absolutely. I would respond to my friend, yes. I have been in on the negotiations, yes. This is not something that has taken place over the last 2 weeks. This committee--Senator Inhofe, Senator Jeffords, Senator Bond, and Senator Reid has spent months working on this bill. Of course, the administration was in on every one--not every one of them but a lot of those conversations. Yes, we originally wanted a bill much bigger than this one, but because of the pressure we got from the White House and other places we have the bill now the number that it is.
So I absolutely have followed this very closely. This bill is extremely important. This is the fourth or fifth highway bill I have worked on.
Before I was interrupted, I was talking about how much better this bill is than the bills in the past when States gave away 25 percent of the money that came into their States. It was determined, when the so- called four managers started this, what we would like to do with legislation. What we wanted to do was to try to work it out so that every State of the 50 States would get 95 cents out of every dollar they put into the trust fund.
Keep in mind this was a big leap forward because some States were getting less than that. Let me just briefly go over, so that people who are watching this--staffs, Senators--understand how difficult this bill has been. Let's go back to the bill of 1982 called the Surface Transportation Assistance Act. This bill established the mass transit account of the highway trust fund. What this is all about is a determination was made to do everything we could do to keep people off of our highways, which saves the highway trust fund money. Therefore, we would work to help with mass transit because if we had good bus service, if we had monorail like we have in Las Vegas, if we have subways like we have in various places, including Washington, DC, it keeps people off the streets and saves us money out of the highway trust fund. So that was the first time we established that. That was in 1982, the first year the Senator from Arizona and I came to Congress.
It contained an 85-cent minimum return provision, meaning that all of those States were getting in the seventies before they would get a minimum of 85 cents for every dollar they put into the trust fund. The Federal gas tax was increased from 4 cents to 9 cents back in 1982. So that took care of that bill.
In 1987, this was a difficult year. That year President Reagan vetoed our bill. We had to override the President's veto. We did that. We did it by one vote in the Senate and they overrode it by a significant number in the House. It was a good bill. It was a bill that changed the speed limit above 55 miles per hour. It included a provision requiring States to be more concerned about the environment as they were doing the road work.
Then 1991 was the first so-called ISTEA bill, Intermodal Surface Transportation Efficiency Act. Earlier, all of us talked about the importance of Senator Moynihan and Senator Chafee and having a highway program in this country that was reflective of the changes to the Interstate Highway System that had been constructed. What we did in the 1991 act was create the CMAQ; that is the Congestion Mitigation Air Quality Program. This was extremely important so that there would be transportation conformity, air quality. With the Interstate System largely complete, as I indicated, ISTEA shifted the Federal program from capital construction to focus on people and goods movement. There were a lot of things we looked at in that bill that simply had not been looked at before. We realized just building new roads was not the answer to all of our highway problems, our congestion problems, our transportation problems in the country. We came to the realization that we talked a lot about that the whole country suffers when there is a traffic jam.
Millions of gallons of fuel are wasted as cars sit and idle. They are the most inefficient when they idle. We also came to the realization, talked a lot about it, that when people are stuck in traffic they can no longer be productive workers. They cannot deliver their goods. They cannot be on their computers at work. They cannot be going to court. They cannot be taking care of their patients. When traffic is stopped, it stops people from being productive. So we talked about that in the 1991 ISTEA bill.
We also expanded the transportation decisionmaking process to include local officials, and even citizens.
Now, in 1998, we did TEA-21 which continued the basic policy structure established in ISTEA. The reason that was important, from 1982 to 1998 we had not changed the minimum requirements States would receive. Six years ago when we took this bill up we said every State will get 90.5 percent of the money they put into a program. That was a big step forward involving a changing of formulas and billions of dollars changed. We did that. We thought it was fair.
In the bill we are taking up this year, we have even gone further. We have said it is important that after we pass this legislation, States at the end of this bill will get 95 percent of what they put in.
My friend from Arizona is right; States that are getting 90.5 percent now would rather get 95 percent tomorrow rather than at the end of this 6-year period. But we are moving this ball down the line toward the goal line, and I think we are scoring a touchdown. Even though the Senator from Arizona talks about how bad this bill is and how he does not like it because of all the pork in it, I do not know what his definition of pork is. I really have some trouble understanding that.
This is a highway bill. There is some money spent for doing work on bridges. As was stated just a few days ago by the Senator from Florida, actually 29 percent of all bridges in this country are substandard. What we have done in this bill, S. 1072, is to try to make sure there is growth among the core programs of this bill, and we have created a new program which is called the safe routes to school program. This has been accepted across the country as being important. We believe children should walk and ride bicycles to school as much as they can. In some places they cannot do that because the traffic patterns are such that they cannot. So part of this money would be spent building bicycle paths and in effect making it easier for children to walk and ride to school.
This reduces the rate of return gap between donor and donee States. So I think we are doing the right thing in this bill. As I indicated, I cannot envision why my friend from Arizona complains about this being pork. It is a highway bill. Is building a highway something that is bad? Is repairing an outdated, dangerous bridge bad? I do not think so. Is trying to improve air quality while doing construction bad? I do not think so. So I do not know why my friend from Arizona is so angry and is talking about all of these bad things. This is a good bill.
As I indicated, the situation in dealing with our national defense system it is not based upon how much money a State pays into a program. It is based on where we need the defense program. Using the theory of my friend from Arizona, what would the State of Idaho do? Idaho is a big State. It is a bridge State. It helps one get to California. If they only got back the money they paid into the program, the roads in Idaho would be a mess. What about Wyoming? What about South Dakota? What about North Dakota? What about Alaska? If one takes off from Seattle and goes to Miami, that is how big the State of Alaska is. Now, they do not have any people there. They do not pay much money into the gas fund. They need help. Their roads are very difficult to maintain.
Wyoming also has no people in it, basically. My friend from Arizona wants Wyoming to get the money they pay into the program, and that is all? This is the United States of America. We are a central whole divided among self-governing parts, and we have a central government that helps make these States not independent, saying every penny they pay into the tax system is all they get out. It will never work that way.
My friend from Arizona, as much as I respect and understand what great contributions he has made to the country,
on this debate has added nothing. He has added nothing. He is just off base. I don't know how else to say it.
I will be happy to yield.
I would say, through the Chair to my friend from Vermont, yes. Major Eisenhower was asked to bring a caravan of military vehicles across the country. He did it, but it was not easy because the roads were impassable on occasions. The people in the convoy had to work on roads as they came across the country. This young officer decided at the time if he ever had the ability to change the condition of the highways in our country, he would do it.
Lo and behold, Eisenhower is elected to be President of the United States and one of the first things our Republican President does is to propose this program that is loaded with pork, that builds roads. President Eisenhower is responsible for the Interstate Highway System more than any other person, and he did it because it met the needs of this country.
As we said, the actual construction of the roads has been completed. One of the last places it was done was in the State of Nevada. Actually it was in California, but it connected Mesquite, NV with St. George, UT. But they had to go through this terrible hard rock to finish the Interstate Highway System. It took a long time and it was extremely expensive to do that, but there were a few little places like that which hung on for years until we could say we completed the system. We did that. Now we have come up with programs that are so important. There are roadways in the country that are just as important as the Interstate Highway System. That is why we have a program, the National Highway System. What this talks about is the offshoots of the Interstate System.
I have talked about this on the floor today. To get to my hometown of Searchlight is not easy to do. There are a couple of ways you can get there. But this bill takes into consideration places such as Searchlight, NV. They are entitled to good roads also. You are not entitled to good roads just because you are on the interstate system.
This bill has gone such a long way to making the playing field more level. I commend my friend from Vermont and my friend from Oklahoma. We didn't have to do this. We could have gotten enough votes to pass this legislation without raising it to 95 percent at the end of this bill. But it was believed by the committee we should do that, that we would raise every State to a minimum of 95 percent. We have done that. It was hard to do, but it benefits a lot of States and certainly the American people and makes a system that is easier to explain and understand.
Yes. When I served in the House of Representatives, I was on the Foreign Affairs Committee. I was dumbfounded. We have all this surplus food and we would take it to other continents, for example, to Africa, and the food would never get where it was supposed to go. Why? Simple. There was no way of hauling it to the places where it was needed. They had an insufficient transportation program in many of these countries. People were starving to death and they couldn't get the food where it was needed.
We don't have anything like that, but it does illustrate why we have to have the ability to move things easier. Each year that goes by, we have to make it easier because we have competition around the world. The more people who are tied up in traffic, in trucks and trains and in personal vehicles, the less competitive we will be. That is what this bill is all about.
For my friend to suggest let's just extend this for a year, come back and look at it again--we have already done that once. The State of Nevada and the other 49 States were grousing when we did that. Why? Because these highway programs, many of them, are multiyear programs. If they can't enter into a multiyear contract, it wastes a lot of money. It wastes money. Something that would have cost $3 million, if we extend this now for an extra year, by the time we finish it could wind up costing $6 million, twice as much as it ordinarily would cost. Without what we have in this bill, we would get a lot less product. Extending this bill for a year's time is not the way to go.
The former majority leader and minority leader of the Senate, the distinguished junior Senator from Mississippi, was on the floor today and that is one of the things he talked about.
We talk about job creation. Here it is actually taking place. This bill will be responsible for hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of jobs in this country--millions of jobs. For every $1 billion we spend in infrastructure, we create 47,000 jobs.
In addition to those 47,000 jobs we will create spending $1 billion here, the spinoff of this, according to Senator Frist, the majority leader of the Senate, is $6.2 billion that flows from that. This bill is a win-win for everyone.
I am at a loss as to why my friend from Arizona would come and try to throw this into the same pot as: Boy, we are spending too much money around here. This is like Medicare.
It has nothing to do with that. These moneys come from the highway trust fund with the exception, which we have already acknowledged, that some moneys are coming from the reshuffling of taxes that are already in existence. There are no new taxes.
I hope the ship is not tilted even a little bit from these statements made by my distinguished friend from Arizona because they should be accorded very little weight.
Madam President, I close by saying again I want the Senator from Vermont and the Senator from Oklahoma to understand how much I appreciate their work on this legislation. We have to keep our eye on the prize. This is, as Senator Lott said, probably the most important piece of legislation we will pass all year. He said that an hour ago, and he is absolutely right. This could be the most important legislation we pass all year
to stimulate the economy, to create jobs, to help States become and remain competitive, and to ease traffic burdens and congestion which we have throughout our country.
Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded. Mr. President, I have just talked to the managers of the bill. My understanding is there is nobody waiting to…
Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.
Mr. President, I have just talked to the managers of the bill. My understanding is there is nobody waiting to speak on the bill. As a result of that, I ask unanimous consent to speak as in morning business for 15 minutes, with the understanding that I will relinquish the floor if the managers have Senators who wish to offer an amendment to the bill. I don't want to delay the bill.
Mr. President, I wanted to speak for a moment about the issue of jobs. There has been an especially vibrant debate recently about the number of jobs that are being created in this country and the number of jobs that are moving overseas from the U.S. to other countries. I wanted to talk about jobs specifically today because there was an announcement that the U.S. has finished a trade agreement with the country of Australia.
We have already had the completion of the Central American Free Trade Agreement, CAFTA; we have had NAFTA, the North American Free Trade Agreement with Canada and Mexico; we have had GATT, the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade; and the WTO. We have all of these agreements and the fact is they are not working out well.
Despite that, instead of correcting the problems in previous trade agreements, our negotiators are continuing to move ahead to negotiate new trade agreements.
Let's consider NAFTA. NAFTA was negotiated with Mexico and Canada. Prior to NAFTA being negotiated, and then approved by the Congress, the United States had a very small trade surplus with Mexico, nearly a $2 billion trade surplus with Mexico. Now, 10 years later, we have a $40 billion deficit with Mexico. I will say that again. In 10 years, with the North American Free Trade Agreement, we took a small surplus with Mexico and turned it into a very large deficit.
Again, when we negotiated the trade agreement with Canada--it was with Canada and Mexico--we had a $10 billion trade deficit with Canada, and that is now $50 billion.
With Mexico, we took a small surplus and turned it into a big deficit. With Canada, we had a modest deficit and quintupled it, from $10 billion to $50 billion. We still have people walking around this town thumbing their suspenders, between puffs of their cigars, and saying this trade agreement was wonderful for our country, it has worked well.
I decided to check which companies certified to the Federal Government the movement of jobs, or the loss of jobs, as a result of NAFTA. I have just received the information from the Congressional Research Service. It is the first time anybody has catalogued this job loss, in this level of detail, as far as I know. But here is what you have.
Now, NAFTA allows for transitional trade adjustment assistance. That is a fancy way of saying, if you are going to lose your job because of this trade agreement, we will give you some supplemental income to help you over the tough spot. The anticipation was people would lose their jobs, and we would try to provide some help, transitional trade adjustment assistance.
In order to get transitional trade adjustment assistance, the employer has to certify that jobs are going to be lost in their company as a result of this trade agreement. That certification goes to the Department of Labor, which keeps track of those certifications.
Let me describe what we found with this Congressional Research Service study, based on Department of Labor data. This is the first time a study has been done in this level of detail.
It says the No. 1 company that certified jobs certified they had 16,095 jobs that they lost either because they moved the jobs to Mexico, in most cases, or because of additional imports from either Mexico or Canada that displaced their workers here.
No. 2, Levi Strauss: 15,676 jobs over this nearly 10-year period. Levi Strauss, now, that is everything that is American, right? Just go buy some Levis. Levis used to be made in the United States. Not anymore. Levis left, and the workers who used to make Levis in this country were able to get some transitional trade adjustment assistance. That is a fancy way of saying: By the way, we are going to sew those Levis in Mexico, and we will give you a few bucks as your job leaves and goes to Mexico. That is what it said to American workers.
There is a whole series of companies, as one might imagine. Fruit of the Loom is seventh on the list, 5,350 jobs. I remember when I saw the actual notice in the paper that Fruit of the Loom was shutting down its U.S. manufacturing plants. I spoke on the floor of the Senate. I said: It is one thing to lose your shirt, but Fruit of the Loom is gone. They are making shirts and shorts and underwear in Mexico. I understand even now that labor costs are too high, and now it is moving to Asia, in some cases.
How about Fig Newton, Kraft Foods? Eat a Fig Newton and you think you are eating a Fig Newton cookie from the U.S. I am sorry, think again. It is Mexican food; Fig Newtons made in Mexico. It left this country, and the resulting layoffs of U.S. workers meant they received transitional trade adjustment assistance.
What does that mean? It means they got laid off. They made a good Fig Newton cookie, but they don't make it here anymore. American employees lost their jobs, and Fig Newtons are now made in Mexico.
This is a list of 100 companies from the Congressional Research Service. This list can be derived from Labor Department data because the companies had to certify job loss. This is slightly over 200,000 employees who lost their jobs. In fact, if you included in the list all who certified, it would be over 400,000 American workers who lost their jobs because of NAFTA, the free trade agreement with the United States, Canada, and Mexico.
Some say other jobs were created. Maybe so. Ask yourself this: If we took a small trade surplus with Mexico and turned it into a very large deficit, and a modest deficit with Canada and turned it into a very large deficit, isn't it inevitably the case that we will have lost a lot of jobs? The answer is clearly yes. It doesn't matter what all the other folks say. We have lost a lot of jobs, and all of these folks-- these are just numbers on a chart, but of these 200,000 people, every one of them had to come home, perhaps some evening after work, and say to their spouse: Honey, I lost my job. I did good work. I had good evaluations all of my career with this company, but they have decided to shut the doors in this country and move to Mexico.
The reason I wanted to point this out is to say there is precious little attention paid these days to the question of what is happening with jobs being so-called ``outsourced.'' I recently visited with a fellow who is founder and CEO of a very substantial company. He said to me: All of my competitors have now moved offshore. All of my competitors have moved offshore, and I have not. He said: I am not going to at this point, but I want you to know it puts me at a dramatic competitive disadvantage because I am paying American wages, and they are in India or Bangladesh or Sri Lanka or China, and they are paying pennies on the dollar for those wages and it makes them much more difficult to compete with.
I said: Good for you for keeping your jobs in this country.
He said: Yes, but somebody has to do something.
The question of this globalization is not just about whether we are globalizing, whether the economy is becoming increasingly global, because it
is. The question is, Are there rules attached to globalization? What will the rules be for globalization? Is it OK to move jobs to a country where you pay them 16 cents an hour and work them 16 hours a day and 7 days a week? Is that something we should aspire to have American workers and American companies compete with? Yet that is exactly the case today. The answer so far has been, yes, that is fair trade.
It is not fair trade where I come from. This economy will not be the economy that produces jobs and represents the economy of the world's biggest and most vibrant economic engine if it does not retain a strong manufacturing base. No country will remain the dominant economy in the world without a dominant and strong manufacturing base.
For 42 straight months, we have had reductions in the manufacturing job base. Why? Because of outsourcing; moving jobs overseas where you can hire people for pennies on the dollar.
Let me go through a couple of charts that show where we are with trade.
This chart shows trade with Mexico. We can see where we were just before our trade agreement. What has happened since that time? A flood of red ink every single year; more and more trade deficits with Mexico.
This chart shows our trade deficit with Canada. I mention both of these only because this is NAFTA, the North American Free Trade Agreement. There is a flood of red ink. We negotiated the trade agreement in 1993, and we can see what is happening. And we still have people saying this has been a great free trade agreement.
This chart shows our trade deficit, which is completely out of control. The President's budget last week asked the Congress to approve a budget that has a dramatic budget deficit. In it, he predicts in the fiscal year in which we now work, the budget deficit will be roughly $530 billion, roughly $530 billion. But in order to get to that, he had to take the Social Security trust funds for the year and use them as other revenues to make the deficit look lower than it really is.
The budget deficit this year is going to be about $660 billion. That is the budget deficit. Add to that a nearly $500 billion trade deficit, and we can see where this is going--higher, higher, and higher. We have a Government with a combined budget deficit and trade deficit that is over $1 trillion, and people walk around as if nothing is going on. This is serious for this country. This is a burden that must be repaid.
Let me talk for a moment about a couple of specific trade issues to show the absurdity of what is happening. This chart shows cars to Korea. Korea sent to the United States 620,000 cars to sell in our marketplace, and we sold to Korea 2,800.
Let me say that again. Mr. President, 620,000 Korean cars came to the U.S. We were able to sell 2,800 in Korea. Why? Because the Korean government doesn't want U.S. cars sold in Korea.
Beef? We can't sell beef in Europe. Why? Because $100 million of beef is banned from the EU each year due to bogus reasons, and we have a very large trade deficit with the EU. Here is the way they characterize U.S. beef: A cow with two heads because of growth hormones.
Guess what. We said to Europe: If you are going to take that action against us, we are going to take action against you. And in the first small semblance of direct action on trade, the U.S. Government decided to take action against Europe.
What did we do? We are going to slap Europe around. We decided to slap Europe around by imposing duties on Roquefort cheese, goose liver, and truffles.
That will strike fear into our trade adversaries, and I say adversaries because when they take unfair action against us, we have a right to take action against them. What do we do? We slap import duties on truffles and goose liver. I am sorry, that does not seem to me to be the kind of action that is very effective against trade partners that are engaged in unfair trade.
I could go on at great length about the issue. The issue, to me, comes down to the subject of jobs. This is a BusinessWeek article of February 3, last year. It talked about U.S. jobs moving offshore. They talked about the official estimate of 3.3 million white-collar jobs moving offshore in the near future. They are talking about in the coming 10 to 12 years an additional 3.3 million jobs. These are not factory jobs, manufacturing jobs. These are white-collar jobs that will be moving offshore.
On the cover of BusinessWeek Magazine recently, it states: ``Is Your Job Next?'' A new round of globalization is sending upscale jobs offshore. They include chip design, engineering, basic research.
Recently, in the last couple of weeks, a Wall Street Journal article talking about documents from the IBM Corporation gives a rare look, they say, at ``sensitive plans for offshoring.''
They got ahold of IBM documents that show the company is acutely aware of the sensitivities involved when they ship jobs overseas. These are white-collar jobs. They say:
Do not be transparent regarding the purpose/intent, and
cautions that the terms ``onshore'' and ``offshore'' should
never be used. The memo--
Which talks about moving jobs offshore--
suggests that anything written to employees should first be
``sanitized'' by human-resources and communications staffers.
In the draft prepared for managers at IBM they suggest workers be told:
This action is a statement about the rate and pace of
change in this demanding industry. . . . It is in no way a
comment on the excellent work you have done over the years. .
. . For the people whose jobs are affected by this
consolidation, I understand this is difficult news.
It is a rare look at companies that are now moving high-skilled, high-wage, white-collar jobs overseas.
We have some serious problems to deal with. This issue of the movement of American jobs overseas is a very serious issue. We can talk about the issue of globalization, and I am somebody who believes this is an increasing economy--I understand that--but I also believe there needs to be standards: What is the admission price to the marketplace of a developed country, a country that fought, for example, for the right of workers to organize, a safe workplace, the ability to prohibit the dumping into streams and waters and the air, poisons and effluents?
We fought for years about those things: Child labor laws, fair labor standards, minimum wages. Now, with just an airplane ride and a decision memo by a company which said we will just pole vault over all of that, we do not have to worry about that, they move our jobs to Bangladesh or Sri Lanka, or to a place where they can hire 12-year- olds, pay them 12 cents an hour, and work them 12 hours a day, 7 days a week. And they do. Then they will ship the product back to Toledo, Pittsburgh, Los Angeles, and Fargo. They say that consumers will be advantaged by that because they will get lower priced commodities.
I conclude by telling one story that I have told previously. It is about Huffy bicycles. Most people are familiar with Huffy bicycles, 20 percent of the American marketplace sold at Wal-Mart, Sears, Kmart. They used to have an American flag as a decal between the handle bar and the front fender. That was when they were made by workers in Ohio who made $11 an hour producing a Huffy bicycle.
I do not know any of those workers, but I am sure they were proud because they had good jobs and produced a good bicycle. They were all fired. Huffy bicycles are now made in China. The workers in Ohio were making $11 an hour. That was too much, according to the company. So Huffy bicycles are made in China for 33 cents an hour by people who work 12 to 14 hours a day for 7 days a week.
No, there is not a flag anymore. That little tin decal between the fender and the handle bar is not an American flag. It is now a picture of the globe.
The question for this country is: Are we going to have any manufacturing jobs left? Is it fair competition to ask an American worker to compete against 33-cent-an-hour labor? We have to answer these questions.
I am not suggesting it is not an increasingly global world, but we need rules for globalization. What is fair competition for the American worker and for American businesses? That is something the Congress has been unwilling to deal with and recent trade agreements have ignored. In fact, the
trade agreements have been fundamentally incompetent, the ones with China, NAFTA, and others.
I have spoken about those agreements at great length previously. Today, what I wanted to do was simply show the chart that shows the 100 companies that have exported jobs, and they have certified that the export of these jobs came about as a result of our trade agreement. This certification is not some speculation on my part. This is certification by each of these companies about the number of jobs that no longer exist in this country because they either moved to Mexico or they displaced imports coming into this country.
This certification that has been made and the CRS has compiled for me is on my Web site, Dorgan.Senate.gov, if someone wants to see the list of companies. I think it is important for people to understand this is what is happening. The question is: Does it matter? For me, it does.
If we are going to have a strong manufacturing base, we have to worry about this. No country will remain a dominant economic power without a strong manufacturing base, in my judgment.
I have more to say about trade. I will do it at a more appropriate time. I understand my colleague wishes to speak on the bill, and I yield the floor.
Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that reading of the amendment be dispensed with.
Madam President, this amendment very simply deals with the question of open containers of alcohol in automobiles and moving vehicles on the roadways. Some perhaps will not believe this, but there are some locations in this country where it is still
legal to put one fist around the neck of a bottle of whiskey, use the other hand to put the key in the ignition, and then with a hand on the steering wheel and a hand on a bottle of whiskey drive off down the road. And it is perfectly legal. Some would say that can't be. Yes. It is. It is the case. In some parts of this country, you can't be drunk while you drive, but you still can drink while you drive, and you are perfectly legal.
I don't think there is any intersection in any part of this country where you or your family or your neighbors ought to meet a vehicle, an automobile, that is being driven by someone who is drinking alcohol, in a circumstance where it is legal for them to drink alcohol while meeting you at that intersection. That is unforgivable, in my judgment. I have been trying, I suppose for 10 or 12 years, to get this done. I offer this amendment again. It simply says to the States: You must have a prohibition on open containers of alcohol in State law. If not, you lose 2 percent of your highway funds. And for up to 4 years you can get the funding restored if you pass the prohibition, but you must have a prohibition of open containers that meets the Federal requirement.
We have that federal requirement. I was instrumental in getting it passed into law. It says you must have a prohibition on open containers of alcohol, and if you do not, some of your highway money goes to hazard mitigation. So we have 36 States that have actually passed statutes that prohibit open containers of alcohol; 14 States have not passed statutes that meet this test. A number of them still get the same amount of highway money, but because money is fungible, they use it for hazard mitigation and use the money on the other side and there is no pain involved at all.
The result is that we have States in this country where it is, one, legal, or, two, illegal but not enforced, where people are driving while they are consuming alcohol. I don't think it ought to be the case anywhere in America for it to be legal to drink and drive.
Every 30 minutes someone receives a call in this country that their loved one has been killed due to a drunk driver. I received that call at about 10:30 one evening, a moment I will never forget. My wonderful mother was killed by a drunk driver. She, like so many others, was driving down the street 30 miles an hour, coming from the hospital at 8 o'clock at night, and a drunk was coming in the other direction, witnesses say at speeds between 80 and 100 miles per hour, in a high- speed police chase, and ran into my mother's car and she was killed.
This carnage on America's highways that is caused by someone drinking and driving is not some mysterious illness or disease for which we do not know the cure. We know what causes this, and we know how to stop it. The way to stop it is to say to people all across this country: You cannot drink and drive. Just that simple. You just cannot do it. Yet there are still States in this country in which it is legal to drink and drive. And there are other States in which it is legal, if the driver does not drink, that other passengers in the car can have open containers of alcohol.
It is long past the time for us to stop it. We have passed legislation that tries to coax the States into doing this, and many have complied by passing legislation that prohibits open containers of alcohol. Now I say let's go the next step, to say to the States: It does not matter where you are driving in this country. We expect, as policymakers, never to have to meet someone at an intersection where the driver or the passengers in that car are drinking, and doing so legally. We know better than that.
Again, every 30 minutes someone receives a call that some member of their family was killed by a drunk driver. That simply means that someone took a drink of alcohol, took too much alcohol, got drunk, got behind the wheel, and turned the automobile into an instrument of murder. We can do better than that in this country. I suggest this piece of legislation is long overdue.
It is interesting to note that the States that do not have a prohibition of open containers of alcohol on the books have alcohol- related fatalities that are higher than the States that do have that prohibition. So the evidence exists that the prohibition works.
It is true that I grew up in a State that is not going to be affected by this because North Dakota has never allowed anyone to have an open container of alcohol in the vehicle. I grew up understanding you do not do that; no one ought to do that. If you are old enough to drink and you want to drink and it is legal for you to drink, you do not drink in a vehicle. There are places for you to drink--in your home or perhaps in an establishment somewhere, but not in a vehicle, not in a car.
It is also the case that those States that have prohibitions on open containers of alcohol have a lower rate of hit-and-run accidents. That is a fact. The Department of Transportation has that information. It is just common sense for a State to say to people, you cannot do this, No. 1, by law; and, No. 2, in enforcing the law, you will have fewer deaths as a result of drunk drivers.
Let me finally say something about an organization called Mothers Against Drunk Driving. It was not too many years ago that a drunk driving charge by the neighbor had others giving him kind of a knowing wink and a nod and a grin and a pat on the back, saying: Well, tough luck, Charlie; you got caught. Not anymore. Now it is serious business. Drunk driving is not a joking matter. Do you know what changed that? Mothers Against Drunk Driving--all across this country, that organization, started by mothers who had lost children and lost loved ones to drunk drivers and decided they were going to make a difference. They went statehouse to statehouse, capital to capital, and they put in place some tough laws. But it is still not enough. I am pleased to say Mothers Against Drunk Driving have supported what I am trying to do in the Senate today for some long while.
They have made a difference. We can help them make an even greater difference by passing this amendment and saying to the States: We are not fooling around. This is serious business. This is life or death for thousands of people.
As I indicated previously, I have offered this amendment prior to this time, I suppose on three or four other occasions. Each time I have offered the amendment, I have been told: Those sanctions are too tough. So they got changed, so that it attempts to coax the States to do the right thing. But the fact is, coaxing is not enough. This Congress, this Senate, ought to say to every State in this country, ought to say to every State, reflecting every jurisdiction, there should be not one corner, not one highway in this country, in which it is legal for people to drink and drive at the same time. That is the policy that ought to come out of this Senate.
A mandate? It is a mandate, no question about that. We propose a number of mandates from time to time on a bill such as this. It is not a mandate that will hurt any State. No State will lose money if only the States decide as a matter of common sense that in their State it shall never be appropriate and never be legal for people to have an open container of alcohol in the vehicle, it shall never be allowed in their State for people to be able to drink and drive simultaneously.
People will shake their heads and say it cannot possibly be the case that that would exist today, but it is, long after the time that should have been changed in some little corners of this country.
That is the amendment I offer. I know my colleagues from Oklahoma and Vermont have pleaded with people to come and offer amendments. I hope they will approve this in 5\1/2\ or 6 seconds, but perhaps it will require more discussion because, as is always the case, I understand, there are some who have heartburn when I propose a significant mandate. And this mandate is 2 percent of highway funds, although no State, in my judgment, would ever lose it and no State need ever lose the highway funds if only they decide, as we have decided, that it ought not be permissible to drink and drive at the same time anyplace in this country and it ought not be permissible to have an open container of liquor in a passenger vehicle on America's highways.
That is a devastatingly simple concept and one that I hope before we finish this highway bill will be approved by this Senate.
I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.
Mr. President, with the approval of the committee, I now withdraw the committee substitute amendment. Mr. President, I now send a substitute amendment to the desk and ask for its consideration. Mr.…
Mr. President, with the approval of the committee, I now withdraw the committee substitute amendment.
Mr. President, I now send a substitute amendment to the desk and ask for its consideration.
Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the reading of the amendment be dispensed with.
Since this process started, we have been encouraging people to come to discuss their amendments. We are now in a position where they can actually offer their amendments. We had quite a few Members who worked over the weekend, who also had their staff working. They brought amendments down, and I thank all of those Members.
We visited with them. As the managers, we accepted some. I think now we are at the point where we do encourage our Members to bring their amendments. While we are in this stage right now, let me share a couple of points that I think are very significant.
There has been a lot of discussion that the formulas are unfair to some States. I suggest that in almost every case where there is a donee State that becomes a donor State, it is by a very small amount. On the average, the disparity between donee and donor is far less.
In approaching this, we actually took the average donor and put 4 cents on it and then from the donee took 4 cents off. I think it is a very fair way of doing it. But when people talk about the formulas, let's keep in mind the formulas are real. They have not been real in the past. They were not real in TEA-21. They tried to do it but they ended up with a minimum guarantee, which is a political document.
The formulas include such things as total lane miles on the interstate, on principal arterial routes; vehicle miles traveled; annual contributions to the highway trust fund attributed to commercial vehicles; diesel fuel used on highways; relative share of total cost to repair or replace deficient highway bridges. That is one I am particularly interested in since, as I have said many times, my State of Oklahoma is dead last in terms of the conditions of bridges; weighted nonattainment and maintenance areas; rate of return of donor States. All of those are in the formula.
This is the first time, since we started this process--at least since I have been here in 1991 when ISTEA came out--that we actually are using the formula and staying with it. It has not been easy, because people who do not like the way their State was treated come down and say all kinds of detrimental things about the formula, about our motives, about the bill in general.
The bottom line is, we have been honest with the Senate and honest with all of the States.
I do not think it will shock anyone to hear that there were political considerations in the past. We know that from the other body. The House Member from Pennsylvania was always very aggressive in getting the most he could for his State. I think a lot of them are like that, and we have corrected a lot of those.
I would say this: Of all of the ones who are the big players in TEA- 21, and that was 1998, there was Senator Moynihan, whom we loved so much. His State was 1.25. We had Pennsylvania, which was Congressman Shuster, 1.21; Rhode Island, of course, Chairman Chafee, 2.17; the Senator from Montana was not only the ranking on the committee but also on the subcommittee, 2.18. At the same time all of that happened, my State was .9050, so we are way down there.
With SAFETEA, our percentages really do not change that much. We do ultimately bring everybody up to 95 percent and that is what this will do. Some are dissatisfied because they do not get up to 95 percent until the sixth year. It is unfortunate we could not come up with any other way, but it would cost so much money that if we did that, the ones who would be paying for it would be the donee States, and that would not be fair to them.
So I feel very good about where we are today. I think we have a fair bill. Very few people in this Chamber know the hours, the months, and the years that have been involved in this bill. Certainly the managers of the bill do because we have been working on this bill for such a long period of time.
Now that we have cloture filed, after it expires, it is our intention to go ahead and have a vote on cloture and get the bill completed. I believe it can be done this week.
I suggest the absence of a quorum.
Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.
Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that I be recognized for up to 7 minutes as if in morning business and then we return immediately to the bill, S. 1072.
Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.
Mr. President, it is appropriate that the occupant of the Chair at the present time is the Senator from Rhode Island because the amendment being offered by the Senator from Virginia is one that was a favorite of one of my favorite people, his father. I can remember many times he would be talking about this amendment. In fact, I can recall some disagreements.
I would say: John, your son is a mayor of a significant city. I am sure if you call him up he will tell you, if there is one thing they don't want, it is unfunded mandates. I was the mayor of a city for four terms. The biggest, greatest plague we had was unfunded mandates.
I will reluctantly oppose the Warner-Clinton-DeWine-Murray seatbelt sanction amendment at the appropriate time. This amendment makes a significant and damaging change to the core safety program established in the highway reauthorization bill.
The amendment imposes a new sanction on States that fail to achieve a 90-percent seatbelt rate or enact a primary seatbelt law. Currently, only 20 of the 50 States meet the requirements of this proposed new Federal mandate. As a result, if this amendment were to pass, 30 States would be immediately thrust into a status of noncompliance with this mandate and the clock would start ticking against them, threatening a significant penalty through the loss of funding. My State of Oklahoma is already in compliance. Actually it wouldn't affect us. We are in compliance with the requirements proposed by this new sanction. But I fundamentally oppose imposition of new sanctions on the States.
While most agree that seatbelts represent the single greatest factor in saving lives on our Nation's highways, the decision to pass a primary seatbelt law is best made at the State level.
The penalties proposed by Senator Warner's seatbelt sanction are twofold. The first penalty takes effect in calculating apportionments for fiscal year 2005. This is especially disconcerting because that gives States who do not already have primary seatbelt laws on the books only 8 months from now to enact a primary law. It doesn't affect me. Our State of Oklahoma already has them. This first penalty would require States in noncompliance to spend 10 percent of the funds apportioned to them under the new core safety programs on safety behavioral projects. Under section 405 of title 23, any funds subject to this transfer cannot be recovered in future years by a State's subsequent compliance with the seatbelt sanction.
A second penalty would be imposed if States had still not enacted a primary seatbelt law or brought their seatbelt rate up to 90 percent by the beginning of fiscal year 2007. States still in noncompliance by this time would lose up to 4 percent of their apportionments under each of the National Highway System programs: The Surface Transportation Program, Interstate Maintenance Program, and the Highway Bridge Replacement and Rehabilitation Program. That one is significant to me. These funds would be completely lost to the States in noncompliance and redistributed among other States.
You could argue that my position in Oklahoma could be enhanced by the passage of this amendment because we know there will be some States that are not in compliance. Certainly our bridges in Oklahoma need as much help as they can get.
The amendment proposes instituting a huge penalty for States without a primary seatbelt law. Although I support the increased use of seatbelts across the United States and would encourage States to enact primary seatbelt laws to reach this objective, I believe threatening States with the loss of needed Federal dollars for surface transportation is not the right approach.
I admire so much the Senator from Virginia and his dedication. I never appreciated what he had to go through 6 years ago as chairman of the Environment and Public Works Committee during the last reauthorization until I became the chairman and am going through it. I am sure he did a far better job than I. But I disagree with this particular amendment.
I am happy to yield.
That is correct.
I know there are similar steps. If you say they are identical, I am sure they are.
I agree with the Senator from Virginia. I only say, if your State were to devise a way to get to the 90-percent mark that they have to get to to keep from being penalized, it would have to take some reasonable period of time. They would have to establish some criteria and then try to get there.
I cannot imagine it could be done within 8 months, and these people would already be subjected to the penalties imposed in the year 2005. That would be a concern.
Mr. President, I look forward to working with the Senator from Virginia, as I always do. I think many of us who came to serve in the Senate who were either Governors or mayors in major cities somehow have this obstacle or obstruction in our minds on any kind of mandates. I plead guilty to that. I think other Members might oppose the amendment, such as the Senator from Missouri who was a Governor. That is primarily the reason.
I would be happy to work with the Senator from Virginia, and I think he has an excellent point. I know his heart is right and he is trying to save lives. That is why we all love him so much.
Mr. President, while we are waiting for people to come with their amendments, I will make a few comments relative to statements that were made on the Senate floor yesterday concerning the bill.
Comments were made by one Senator who said he would just suggest that we swap formulas between Oklahoma and Arizona. That was the senior Senator from Arizona, a very distinguished Senator. I only say that Arizona and Oklahoma and all other 48 States have exactly the same formula. You don't have to swap formulas. They are the same.
I also suggest in the case of Arizona, it gets more money than Oklahoma does under this bill--by about $60 million. So if a swap were taking place, I think I would go along with that.
I am concerned a little about the statements made that more States will become donor States. That is true under this bill. Right now, the disparity between donor and donee is far greater than it will be after this bill is passed. So if you have a State that goes from a $1.01 down to 99 cents, that is a small amount, but because it goes below the threshold of a dollar, then it is now in donor status. So the way we try to accomplish this is, if you take the average, the average donor State increased by 4 cents; the average donee State decreased by 4 cents. I don't see that anything could be more fair than that.
Third, I think if you look at the individuals who were driving this legislation 6 years ago--TEA-21--you found that there were some parts of the State that were perhaps treated better than other parts. Certainly, we had three of the most powerful people from the northeastern seaboard--Senators Moynihan, Congressman Shuster, and Senator Chafee. When you look at the amounts that they, under TEA-21, achieved, New York was $1.25; Pennsylvania, $1.21; Rhode Island, $1.26; and Oklahoma, 90.5 cents, which was the minimum. A critic of this bill said we should do what we did 6 years ago and immediately go to 90.5 cents as a floor instead of waiting until the sixth year.
The problem with that is there is not enough money. And if we did that, that would have to come out of the donee State. The other problem is we are actually much more ambitious in this bill in reaching that point.
If you look at this State by State--and several times on this Senate floor we have been challenged by Members from States who felt their State was not getting a fair shake--keep in mind that every State is going to increase by at least 10 percent under this bill, and every State is going to have a donor status of nothing less than 95 percent at the conclusion of this bill, at the sixth year.
Mr. President, I say to my friend from Nevada, the argument I recall against the amendment was that the driver himself or herself would be in a position where they could lose control of a vehicle by not having a seatbelt on and, obviously, the children would be safer than if nobody had on a seatbelt.
The Senator makes a very good point. It is one at which I would certainly like to look.
I can assure the Senator from Nevada, I learned the hard way what our law was in Oklahoma when we started cranking out grandbabies. We have 11 of them now. I did not realize the seriousness of this bill and I did not have
one of the young ones in a seatbelt, and I had to pay the penalties. I learned the hard way they really meant business.
Our law has teeth. I would certainly like to look and see what kind of results the State of Nevada has had.
Of course.
We haven't quit.
In terms of population of the State of Nevada and the percentage my grandchildren constitute in my State, the Senator from Nevada is way ahead of me.
Mr. President, there are other points about which I could be talking that were brought up, but I don't think it serves any useful purpose. We made great progress on this bill. People have said nothing happened last week. Something did happen last week. We had a chance to bring up the bill, go over the bill, talk to people, and line up votes, quite frankly.
We have the vast majority of people believing this is the right bill. I only regret there are those who try to say it is not fair for one reason or another. There is no question, if you take this and the last two 6-year reauthorizations, that this bill is far more fair than any other authorization we have done.
All these points were kept in mind as to donee States and donor States. Now that we get up to 95 percent, we are going to forget about what it was like to be a 70-percent donor State, but I can remember. This will be an issue that will go away because you figure you are high enough. This bill got us there.
At the same time, we have donee States, States that have done very well in the past. I mentioned a minute ago, partially because the former chairman of the House Transportation Committee, Congressman Bud Shuster--and I served with him for 8 years in the House on that committee--perhaps his State got a little higher than it should have through his anxious approach. However, when you compare that to the State of Oklahoma--this is an interesting comparison--you can look at a chart and see you are not getting as much as last year and, therefore, it is unfair.
That is just not true. My State has roughly the same road miles as the State of Pennsylvania. If you look at the next 6 years, the State of Pennsylvania is getting three times as much money as we are getting in our State of Oklahoma. It doesn't sound like I did a very good job for Oklahoma.
There are other factors involved. It was called to my attention by one of the Senators from that State that it is a pass-through State. Everyone goes through Pennsylvania to get someplace. How do you put that into an equation? How do you put down how many people stop to buy products or services in your State? Some of these factors can't be done.
I will say this: The old bill turned out to be a minimum guarantee. That was wrong. That was a political document that merely said we will make 60 percent of the people in this Chamber happy, and we don't care what happens to the other 40 percent. That was not an appropriate way to approach that bill.
With the factors of donee, donor, total lane miles, vehicle miles traveled, annual contributions to the highway trust fund from commercial vehicles, diesel fuel just on highways, relative share of the total cost of repair and replacement of deficient highways and bridges, weighted nonattainment in maintenance areas, and rate of return for donor States, this formula has worked, and I am very proud of it.
We have gone through the last 2 weeks complimenting each other and the leadership. I certainly compliment my friend from Vermont, the ranking member, Senator Jeffords, as well as Senator Reid, the ranking member on the subcommittee, and, of course, Kit Bond, the chairman of the subcommittee under my committee. But I also compliment the staff.
I can promise you, Mr. President, that the staff worked many more hours than we did. They were down there all this last weekend. All I was doing was sitting on the phone calling for votes. It was a lot of hard work, a lot of dedication. I want all the staff members of the majority and the minority to know how much I personally appreciate them.
I think it is necessary to have this bill. I can't think of anything worse than going on these short extensions and no one can plan in advance. With the bill we have today, we have it set up so we can plan in advance.
The IPAM part of this bill will allow those projects which are ready to go to start working, to start those projects going, to hire the people.
We had a chart a while ago as to the number of people this bill puts to work. We are talking about almost 3 million people, 3 million jobs that will be filled as a result of having this bill pass.
I look forward to talking about the amendments, working toward cloture, and getting this bill passed in the Senate and sent to conference so we can all go to work in conference and come up with a good solution to our Nation's highways, roads, and infrastructure problems, as well as jobs in America.
I yield the floor.
Will the Senator yield?
In fairness to the Senator's cosponsors and in fairness to others who may not be easily retrievable at this time, I believe it would be a good idea to defer the vote. I will move to table and ask for the yeas and nays but ask the leadership to maybe put it tomorrow morning sometime. That will give the Senator ample time and provide time for them to be heard on the bill. Is that acceptable?
I do not have a problem with that and 40 minutes on this side at all. Why not plan to do that?
Now I have been told we cannot lock in time agreements on a tabling motion, so I will withhold.
Let me be sure we all understand: In my State of Oklahoma, it perhaps makes no difference. We are one of the 20 States that has mandatory seatbelt laws. In fact, it could be argued we could be benefited by this because if other States do not comply and are punished, then that amount of money could go to the States that already comply. So I could actually benefit.
My problem has always been, as the distinguished Senator from Virginia knows, it is a mandate. I would prefer not to do it this way.
I know the Senator's heart is right. I know there is another great person who served in here by the name of John Chafee who felt as strongly about this as the distinguished Senator from Virginia.
Yes.
I have read the AASHTO letter to Senator Murkowski and agree with her that the task force proposed by AASHTO will indeed accomplish what she seeks to achieve.
Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the letter from AASHTO dated February 3, 2004 to Senator Murkowski be printed in the Record.
I understand that the Senator has also proposed creating a new program to encourage improvements in the States' motorcycle safety programs. I believe this amendment would be very valuable. I also believe it would be most appropriate offered as part of the Commerce Committee title, and would like to be added as an original cosponsor of the amendment when that happens.
Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded. Madam President, first, I say to the distinguished manager and chairman of the Environment and Public Works…
Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.
Madam President, first, I say to the distinguished manager and chairman of the Environment and Public Works Committee, on which I have been privileged to serve some 16, 18 years, I commend him for his diligence and commitment to try to get this highway bill through the Senate and hopefully enacted into law. I had much the same responsibility some 6 years ago. I know the complexity of this particular piece of legislation.
I have worked with the distinguished chairman and the distinguished Senator from Missouri in the preparation of this particular measure. It is badly needed by America. I hope we can work our way through this situation.
I send to the desk an amendment.
I address the distinguished manager of the bill and ask unanimous consent to have this amendment called up and possibly agreed to.
Mr. President, the distinguished manager had the courtesy to advise me that he would object. Given the situation which I think I understand, I would just like to speak to the bill and develop a record for today and hopefully eventual consideration of this amendment in the not distant future can be arranged.
This amendment is cosponsored by the distinguished Senator from New York, Mrs. Clinton, and my dear friend and colleague, the Senator from Ohio, Mr. DeWine. It is an amendment to increase our national seatbelt use rate to some 90 percent. This amendment is identical to the text of legislation I introduced last year, S. 1993.
If my colleagues examine the highway bill and what it means to each of our States, our foremost responsibility, in my judgment and in the judgment of many, and in the judgment of the President of the United States, must be to improve highway safety for the driving public.
Today we had a very impressive press conference. I will give further details about it shortly. We must have had a dozen or so representatives who spoke on behalf of their respective organizations endorsing this bill.
I ask unanimous consent to print in the Record a list of organizations endorsing this bill.
Mr. President, this is a list of 135 organizations across America that advocate their support for this particular piece of legislation.
This chart is an enumeration of those organizations. It is not readable, but the list is in the Record for all to see.
Simply by increasing the number of Americans who will buckle up is the most effective step that can be taken to save their lives and the lives of others. That is the single most important step.
I am privileged to serve on this committee, as I said, that has the primary responsibility for reauthorizing TEA-21. The bill addresses, as it should, highway safety measures, such as how to build safer roads or how to use new technologies to improve safety. But--and I underline ``but''--statistics show that the greatest measure of safety again to drivers, passengers, and possibly third parties, many of them innocent third parties, not connected with the bill is through the use of the seatbelt. It is remarkable the lives that have been saved through the use of this simple device over the years.
America has about a 79-percent use rate of seatbelts. That has been translated into the saving of tens of thousands of lives and injuries in automobile accidents, but we can do better. Those are the facts. Are we just going to have a standstill or are we going to move forward? Senators Clinton, DeWine, and myself think we should move forward with a firmer approach with achievable goals and funding.
We have debated the benefits of seatbelt use on many occasions in this body and elsewhere across America. Whether it is in the town forums we conduct, the town meetings, or on the floor of the Senate, there is always that individual who comes back: Don't tell me what I have to do. What does it matter to you--they will often say, or to any other colleague with whom I have had the privilege to serve--what does it matter to you whether I buckle up? It matters a great deal to me and to all those who share the joys but often the burdens--the increasing burdens--of driving and using our road system and the risks.
Let's take a look. No one disputes that the absence of wearing a seatbelt causes more loss of life and serious injury. Statistics solidify that assumption. The statistics show that the impact associated with a crash, to the extent a driver can maintain control of the vehicle in those fatal seconds, the severity of the crash, and perhaps the loss of life can be reduced significantly by the use of the safety belt. It is as simple as that.
Accidents involving unbelted drivers result in a significant cost. Many people are rushed from the accident scene to various emergency facilities. All of that has the initial cost of the law enforcement and the rescue squads that respond, and eventually the cost to the emergency room or whatever medical facility you might have the good fortune to be taken to hopefully save your life. That does not come free. How well we know that.
There is a cost. It is borne by the local community often or the county or the State. Regrettably, a number of persons who suffer these types of injuries are uninsured. Again, the cost often devolves down on the good old hard-working taxpayers and, in most instances, the taxpayers who otherwise would buckle up.
That is lost time for your mission on the road, be it for business, family, or pleasure. That is lost time in productivity. Behind you are often trucks and other vehicles involved in commerce. That is lost time in delay due to the serious occasion of injuries and accidents from the lack of use of seatbelts. It is simple as that. Often the highway is shut down, and it is just incalculable the inconvenience and cost to others while your safety and perhaps your survivability is attended to more often than not by volunteer fire departments or others who come to the rescue.
The legislation that we three Senators are introducing today will take an important step for the States to adopt either a primary safety belt law or take steps of their own devising to meet a 90-percent seatbelt use rate, not the Warner amendment or the legislative measure put forth by the administration upon which Senator Clinton and I draw for concepts of certain portions.
The States can decide for themselves--I wish to underline, we are challenging the States to decide for themselves how they achieve a 90- percent goal of the use of seatbelts in their respective States. They could have a far better idea than we have. That is the purpose of this legislation, to move every State to a 90-percent use rate for safety belts.
In a letter dated November 12, 2003, to Chairman Inhofe of the Committee on Environment and Public Works, on which, again, I am privileged to serve, Secretary Mineta states:
President Bush and I believe that increasing safety belt
usage rates is the single--
I repeat, the single--
most effective means to decrease highway fatalities and
injuries.
That is explicit and clear. The Secretary goes on in that letter to say:
. . . the surest way for a State to increase safety belt
usage is through the passage of a primary safety belt law.
I have had this debate with Governors, former Governors, even in this Chamber with former Governors. I think they would all say that a primary safety belt law is tough legislation to pass solely on its own in the State legislatures. Those in this Chamber who have been members of State legislatures know best. Those of us who have worked with State legislatures, as I have over the 25 years I have been privileged to be a Senator, I have some idea of how those legislatures operate. Certainly, those who have been Governors--and many of my colleagues in this Chamber have been Governors--know full well the difficulty confronted at the State level in getting this type of law through.
Frankly, it needs the cover, one might say the political cover, the impetus, given by the Congress--that is us, Uncle Sam--of the United States to move that process in the States forward.
So the local politicians can shake their fists at old John Warner, they can shake their fists, hopefully, at those who will join in passing this legislation and say it is Washington that has done it again--more regulation, more direction. We know the arguments. We have all heard them. But lives and injuries and costs to the community can be saved.
I think quietly, in the hearts of those State legislatures, is the thought that we will improve safety in our State. We will improve the chances of survivability on the roads of our State.
I ask unanimous consent the full text of Secretary Mineta's letter be printed in the Record following my remarks.
As provided in our amendment, States can increase seatbelt use by enacting, as I said, a primary seatbelt law. Everybody knows what a primary seatbelt law is and how it works.
I want to explain the basic laws as shown on this chart. The white State has a primary enforcement seatbelt law. Those are the existing States. The red State needs a primary enforcement seatbelt law. So my colleagues can see the magnitude.
Here is my State, Virginia. Twice now that primary seatbelt law has gone through the legislature up to the point of a final vote, and by one vote only, twice, the General Assembly of Virginia has rejected that primary seatbelt law. That is a clear reason that impetus by the Federal Government can help achieve that one vote and hopefully many more.
Now, let's talk about the mechanics. It means a law enforcement officer can literally stop a vehicle if they observe that the individual is not wearing his or her seatbelt. It is as simple as that. But a State, if they decide not to enact a primary seatbelt law, can, by implementing their own strategies, whatever they may be--and there is a lot of innovation out in the States--that would result in a 90- percent seatbelt use rate. So that is a challenge to the States.
It can be achieved by other means other than having the officers under law be given the right to stop the vehicle when he observes that the driver is not using a seatbelt.
The current national seatbelt use, as I said, is 79 percent. But many States, those that have the primary law, are sometimes at 90 or even above 90, but those that do not have the primary seatbelt law are down somewhere in the 60 percentile. Just think, only 60 percent of the drivers in some States utilize that seatbelt. It is the weight of the primary States that carries the percentile and brings it up to 79 from those States that do not have an effective law. States with their primary safety belt law have the greatest success for drivers wearing seatbelts.
On an average, States with the primary seatbelt law have a 10 to 15 percent higher seatbelt use compared to those with a secondary system. This demonstrates that secondary seatbelt laws are far more limited in their effectiveness than a primary law.
Essentially, the secondary laws say if a law enforcement officer has cause other than a perceived or actual seatbelt violation, namely the driver did not have it buckled, if they have cause to stop that car, for example, for a speeding offense or a reckless driving offense or indeed an accident, and they observe there has been no use of the seatbelt, then in that circumstance, in the course of proceeding to enforce the several laws of that State as regards speeding and reckless driving or whatever the case may be, they can add a second penalty to address the absence of the use of the seatbelt in that State.
Drivers are gamblers, unfortunately, but that is the way it is. They say: Oh, well, don't worry. I will not buckle up--State law does not require it--unless they stop me, and they are not going to stop me today.
It is that gambling attitude that more often than not will cause an accident. Then it is too late.
So we come forward today to build on our national program. We are building on what we did in TEA-21. I was privileged to be on that committee at that time. I was then, as I said, chairman of the subcommittee 6 years ago. I worked with the late Senator John Chafee. What a distinguished and able Senator he was, and those who were privileged to serve with him have fond memories of working with him. He was chairman of the full committee. We drove hard to make progress for the seatbelt laws, and we did it. This chart shows the result.
We basically put aside a very considerable sum of money to encourage States, again, by using their own devices, to increase usage. As a direct consequence of what we did in TEA-21, there has been an 11- percent increase in these 6 years in the use of seatbelts. Now, that is significant, but it could be much greater and stronger.
Sadly, traffic deaths in 2002, just one fiscal year, rose to the highest level in over a decade. It is astonishing. Of the nearly 43,000 people killed on our highways, over half were not wearing their seatbelts. Now, that is a considerable number of individuals. That is according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. In the judgment of the people who responded to the accidents, they considered that 9,200 of these deaths might have been prevented if the safety belt had been used.
Those are the alarming statistics. Automobile crashes are the leading cause of death for Americans aged 2 to 34. Stop to think of that, age 2. That means a child. That means a parent neglected to buckle up the child. Automobile crashes are the leading causes of death for Americans age 2 to 34. That is our Nation's youth. So many of them are in the Armed Forces of the United States. Passage of this will be helpful to the Armed Forces.
Do we have a higher calling in the Congress than to do everything we can to foster the dreams and ambitions and the productivity of our Nation's youth? I think not. And this is one of the most effective means to do it.
Last year, 6 out of 10 children who died in car crashes did not have the belt on; 6 out of 10. That is over half. I plead with colleagues to join me, join with the President of the United States, join with the Secretary who has taken this initiative.
My primary responsibility in the Senate--and this is one of the reasons I got interested in this subject--is the welfare of the men and women of the Armed Forces, as I mentioned. I say to colleagues again, the statistics are tragic. Traffic fatalities are the leading noncombat cause of death for our soldiers, our sailors, our airmen, our marines. They are in that high-risk age category, 18 to 35. I repeat, it is the largest noncombat cause of death.
Someone even took a look at the statistics and totaled the fatalities last year and said that represents in deaths the size of an average U.S. Army battalion. That is a lot of folks. That is one of the principal incentives I have. I cannot think of any reason why we all cannot join behind this effort. That alone is the driving impetus for this Senator.
The time is long overdue for a national policy to strengthen seatbelt use rates. I said a national policy, and that is what this bill represents, either through States enacting a primary seatbelt law of their own conception and devising or passing this law, giving far greater attention to public awareness programs that result in more drivers and passengers wearing safety belts. Our goal is 90 percent for the Nation.
I have been privileged to serve on this committee 17 years and I, together with many others, notably my dear friend, the late chairman, Senator John Chafee, addressed this issue. Our committee is rich in the history of focusing revenue from highway trust funds on effective safety programs. It goes back through many chairmen and members of the Environment and Public Works Committee.
With jurisdiction over the largest share of the highway trust fund, our committee has had the vision to tackle important national safety programs. The legislation before us does provide more funding to help build safer roads. That is a step forward. But it does not have, in my judgment, that provision which represents a step up from what we did in TEA-21, that provision that would represent a recognition for the President's initiative.
The President has taken a decidedly strong initiative to increase the use of seatbelts. It is absent from the bill, and that is why we need a provision, by virtue of this amendment, to strengthen and move forward the position of the Congress on the position of increased use of safety belts on America's highways and roads. That is the purpose of this amendment.
It is just unfortunate that those with reckless intent quickly disregard responsible behavior and drive unbelted at excessive speeds, and many times with the use of alcohol. So no increased dollars for improving road engineering, which is in this bill--and I commend them for that, but that alone cannot defy, in many instances, the type of personal conduct that results in reckless behavior. In other words, engineering can quickly be overcome by the reckless driving, and particularly that associated with alcohol.
Automobiles now come equipped with crash avoidance technologies and are more crashworthy than ever before. But these advances are only a very small part of the solution. In repeated testimony before the Environment and Public Works Committee from the administration, from our States, safety groups, and the highway insurance industry, we are told three main causes of traffic deaths and injury are unbelted drivers, speed, and alcohol.
The formula we have devised in this legislation does have a reduction in the amount which the State receives under the proposed bill that we will consider next year when they fail to achieve the 90 percent safety belt use rate. It is as simple as that. But the formula is patterned directly after the law that is on the books now with respect to the .08 legal blood alcohol content level.
In other words, the formula we have in this amendment is identical, in terms of that what I call inducement--carrot/stick type of legislation--that we did for the .08 legal blood alcohol.
The net effect of this legislation is simply to recognize we are asking the same type of sanction policy with regard to one of the three major causes of death--alcohol--be equated to a second cause of death and injury, and that is the absence of the use of seatbelts, bringing into parallel two of the three principal causes of death and injury on the highways: .08 and mandatory use of seatbelts.
The administration put forward an innovative safety belt program, as I said, under the leadership of the President, and that was a major component of a new core transportation program, the Highway Safety Improvement Program, submitted to the Congress. Our amendments incorporate the administration's bill and include additional incentives for States to increase seatbelt use rates.
I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record today a deeply moving statement delivered by the representative of the American Medical Association, strongly in support of this legislation, and a letter from the Virginia Association of Chiefs of Police, strongly in favor of this legislation. Of course, the letter to the distinguished chairman, Mr. Inhofe, from the Secretary of Transportation is already a part of the Record.
I am pleased to say Senator Murray has asked to join as a cosponsor and I so request that be noted on the amendment.
Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.
Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded. Madam President, while the Senate began debating S. 1072, the Safe, Accountable, Flexible, and Efficient…
Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.
Madam President, while the Senate began debating S. 1072, the Safe, Accountable, Flexible, and Efficient Transportation Equity Act, known as SAFETEA, nearly 1 week ago, I am not sure some of my colleagues have been informed about how this bill would impact their State's highway funding. While perhaps we have all taken a look at the tables distributed by the committee of jurisdiction a few weeks ago, these tables omit some very important facts, including the fact that the number of donor States would actually increase under the pending legislation compared to the last reauthorization bill, TEA-21.
Instead of giving greater parity, it appears to be going in the opposite direction, as I will explain in a few minutes. Before I go too much further, I understand that after my colleague from Arizona was on the floor last week in opposition to this legislation, the Senator from Oklahoma went through some routine about how Arizona would do well under this legislation. Rather than subject my colleague from Oklahoma to that again, I would suggest we swap formulas between Oklahoma and Arizona. If the Senator from Oklahoma is not willing to do that, then please don't waste my time and his in trying to convince me this is a good deal for the State of Arizona.
First, I think it might help to put the bill in context by quickly reviewing the history of the Federal highway program, which I briefly mentioned on the floor last Monday evening. Nearly 50 years ago, the Federal Aid Highway Act of 1956 was enacted. As you can see, it was a deceptively inconspicuous-looking piece of legislation. It was 29 pages, but what it accomplished truly changed this country. The 1956 act created programs that constructed the interstate highway system, the largest civil works project ever undertaken by the United States. The act established the highway trust fund, financed by taxes paid by motorists--financed by taxpayers, not by general revenue--which is an important aspect to look at as we consider this legislation. It required that the interstate be built using a uniform design that would be safe within most U.S. highways in existence at that time.
The program to construct the interstate was first proposed by President Eisenhower in 1954 and signed into law in 1956. Today we are all the beneficiaries of the foresight of President Eisenhower and a Congress that helped to shepherd this bill through to enactment. The interstate system is 47,000 miles long, comprised of 62 superhighways crisscrossing the Nation in a grid. Twenty-four percent of all travel occurs on the interstate, and it has obtained a record being twice as safe as other highways.
Unfortunately, when people look back 50 years from now at the highway legislation currently before the Senate, I don't think history will be as kind. We reauthorize the multiyear highway transit safety programs about every 6 years. We last reauthorized these programs in 1998 with enactment of TEA-21, the Transportation Equity Act for the 21st Century, following extensive debate in the Senate. The highway program reauthorization measure is a bill second to none in terms of attracting Members' interests. We all want to know how much our States will receive in highway funding under the byzantine formula distribution being proposed during each authorization debate. Therefore, because of its significance, it is important that each and every Member have an opportunity to know what the bill would do and how it would do it.
At this point, what exactly do my colleagues know about the real impact this bill would have on their States? I recognize the difficulties this reauthorization poses for the bill managers. I would prefer to be in a position to support their legislation. But in its current form, I cannot.
The bill would increase highway funding by over $60 billion over the TEA-21 enacted level, again, over $60 billion, for a total of $255 billion. At the same time, the bill not only perpetuates the donor/ donee discrepancy that we donor State representatives have battled during every highway bill reauthorization, but it actually expands it. The 28 donor States under TEA-21 will have the company of another three States--New Hampshire, Oregon, and Wisconsin--if this proposal is approved.
I guess I could say something about misery loving company, but I don't want more States to be shortchanged. Instead, I want all States to be treated more fairly. It amazes me that an additional $60 billion still can't enable the authorizing committee to develop a fairer formula but, as demonstrated by EPW's funding tables, they cannot or perhaps simply will not. Where will this extra $60 billion go?
While the EPW Committee argues its bill would get every State to a 95-percent rate of return by 2009, the sixth year of the authorization, I remind my colleagues that under TEA-21, the formula increased the minimum rate of return from 85 percent to 90.5 percent in the first year, and it continued throughout the authorization period. Yet, again, the EPW bill we are considering doesn't raise the floor to 95 percent until the sixth year. So, again, where exactly will this $60 billion go?
The committee proposes a new so-called formula. I say that because it is not actually a formula but instead is a series of five calculations consisting of funding caps and floors. This Rube-Goldberg-like funding contraption is grossly unfair and would result in 31 States getting back significantly less funding than they contribute to the highway trust fund. Further, while a number of the current bottom-of-the-barrel donor States would receive an immediate step up from the smallest of 90.5 percent rate of return, including a number of donor States with members on the committee, six States would receive almost no percentage increase until the last year of the authorization in 2009.
Under this formula, Arizona, California, Colorado, Florida, Maryland, and Texas would be held at the very bottom, while many other States also would continue to get shortchanged.
This is not the right approach. It is unfair. We should do everything we can to try to ensure that any bill voted on is more equitable for all States. Again, it isn't just these six States that I mentioned that are being asked to contribute more to the highway trust fund than they will get back. I asked the Department of Transportation to provide an analysis of the formula. I thought it would be revealing to first learn how much each State would receive if the formula funds in the EPW bill were distributed proportionately back to each State based on their contributions to the highway fund.
According to the Department of Transportation, 31 States are donor
States under this formula, while 19 get back more than they pay in, according to this chart.
Let me give some examples. The people of California are being asked to send almost $2 billion to Washington, DC, so that it can be redistributed through some arcane funding scheme to the lucky 19 States that would get back more than they put in.
For Arizona, $364 million of its contributions would be sent away to the 19 States. You know, it is interesting, Arizona and California, neighboring States, have something in common that, frankly, neither Vermont nor Oklahoma have, which is high growth. Obviously, it puts on greater pressure when you have a high-growth population, which actually argues for increased funding. Instead, we are being shorted.
But here are other examples of funding. Florida, another high-growth State, would send away a billion dollars; Georgia would send away $643 million; Illinois would send away $403 million; Kentucky would send away $304 million; Michigan would send away $383 million; Missouri would send away $286 million; New Jersey would send away $547 million; Ohio would send away $517 million; and Texas would send away $1.7 billion.
The list goes on and on. It is remarkable.
I fully realize that during the era when the Federal Government was building the Interstate System, a redistribution of funding between the States may have made sense. Clearly, it would have been difficult for Montana, for example, with fewer than a million people, to fully pay for building its share of the Interstate System. But that era is over.
Congress declared the construction of the interstate complete in 1991. Yet here we are, 13 years later, and donor States are still being expected to agree to the redistribution of hundreds of millions, if not billions, of dollars to other States, regardless of the already enormous transportation needs in donor States. Why?
I am sure we will hear about the great transportation needs of the States that receive more than they contribute. I have no doubt that those States do in fact have such needs. But how is it determined that California should have nearly $2 billion of its funding redistributed? Why aren't California's transportation needs as worthy of receiving the same percentage of Federal funds as provided to meet the transportation needs of New York, for example, which will receive $989 million more than it contributes over 6 years? Where is the logic? I am afraid there is none.
Let's consider New Hampshire and Vermont. These are two very similar sized neighboring States. Both have about the same total road and street mileage--around 15,000 miles. But under this EPW formula, New Hampshire is a donor and Vermont is a donee, getting a windfall of almost $500 million, or almost 190 percent of what it contributes. In fact, Vermont would even receive more in total dollars than New Hampshire. There can be no policy rationale for that--none.
I will admit that I have a certain affection for the State of New Hampshire--a great deal of affection for the State of New Hampshire. But to have this kind of disparity between two States is rather remarkable.
Madam President, this bill is suspect. In fact, the tables that have been circulated by the EPW Committee actually raise more questions than they answer. For example, what affect will new air quality standards have on State allocations? The new formula included in the EPW bill for the congestion management and air quality improvement program, a program totaling $13 billion, is not reflected in the tables.
What happens to State allocations if the bill is not fully funded? The promise that your State, if you are a donor, will finally achieve a 95-percent return by 2009 may be empty. In order to achieve a 95- percent rate of return for all States in 2009, it would require a 1- year increase of $5.5 billion in 2009. How likely is that to occur, taking into consideration the projected fiscal year 2005 budget deficit of $\1/2\ trillion continued budget deficit projections well beyond 2009?
Here is a fundamental question, one I think the President is seriously considering: Are we really paying for this bill? The Finance Committee has proposed what many of us consider to be accounting gimmicks to make the highway bill appear to be fully paid for. But appearances are often deceptive, as several colleagues have already discussed on the floor. How will the Finance Committee's proposed accounting changes for gasohol taxation impact your State's share? I am told it will be dramatic for some States. Should the EPW Committee's funding tables not be updated to reflect any and all changes so that we all know the real impact of what we are being asked to vote on?
What affect will provisions in a potential managers' amendment have on your State's funding? Last Friday, on this floor, the chairman of the committee announced that Members' staff should bring all of their amendments to the committee staff on Saturday to determine if they will be incorporated into the managers' amendment. Today, it was announced that the EPW Committee staff met with 10 Members' offices over the weekend. The Democratic bill manager announced this afternoon that 34 amendments have been accepted by the managers. What amendments are being accepted? I am sure we will know when we read the Congressional Record. Should we not all be informed? Clearly, the managers' amendment needs to be made available for review prior to us being asked to vote on it. And will the EPW Committee distribute tables showing the impact of any funding changes that will occur under the managers' amendment? Again, we should all want to know exactly what is being proposed and how it will impact our State's funding.
I strongly support a long-term reauthorization of the Nation's surface transportation programs and understand the vital nature of this funding to our States. This legislation only comes before the Senate every 6 years. I urge my colleagues to start asking some questions and ensure that they fully understand how the safety legislation would impact their State before it is allowed to pass the Senate.
We also have been told that at some point in the next few days, before we vote cloture on this bill, we will add a ``slimmed down'' energy bill to the highway bill. Now, I will freely admit--in fact, I will testify to the fact--that many times in our Nation's Capital we either are immune to, or insensitive to, the concerns of the American people. Here we are looking at massive deficits, massive overspending, massive growth of Government, unseen in the history of this country, and what are we going to do? We are going to add a ``slimmed down'' energy bill.
I understand that it has gone from $31 billion to $18 billion or $13 billion--you know, only in the teens of billions of dollars. This is a remarkable exercise. Adding an energy bill that was basically rejected--thank God--by this Senate, because of its hooters, looters, and polluters provisions, and now we are going to stick it on to the highway bill.
What does the energy bill have to do with the highway bill? Nothing. Do we have no shame? Is there no embarrassment whatsoever about the way we are doing business around here?
Madam President, I will continue to struggle and fight to see that for these 19 States, the percentage of what they are getting, as opposed to what they donate, is also important, as opposed to the 31 States which will be donating, and that we try to correct this inequity. Really what we should do is have a 1-year extension of the existing legislation and go back at this again next year. I think that would probably be of benefit to the taxpayers of America, who are deeply concerned about our overspending.
I also point out that I think the attention of the President of the United States is on this issue. I have heard--not directly but indirectly--that he would contemplate a veto of this legislation. I can think of no single act that might be more important or popular with the American people than for him to veto this bill, because at least the funding should come out of users fees, which was the fundamental principle behind the original highway bill.
If this Congress, in its wisdom, because we need more money for highways, thinks we need to increase the gas tax, I think that is a subject for
discussion and debate. The American people are getting a little weary of this smoke and mirrors of passing a $400 billion Medicare prescription drug bill and finding out within weeks that it is $130 billion more expensive, to see our deficit skyrocket from surpluses of several trillion dollars and deficits of several trillion dollars. And no one--no one--no economist believes we are going to have the deficit within the next several years because, guess what, Madam President. We are going to be coming back--among other overspending, including this one--we are going to be coming back next year for another emergency supplemental for our operations in Iraq which will probably be in the range, at minimum, of about $50 billion.
I am hopeful that the American people will call a halt to this overspending. I am hopeful that the American people, particularly in these 31 States, will recognize that for every dollar in taxes they are paying when they go to the fuel pump, they are getting less than that back because it is being funneled through Washington, DC, to the benefit of States for which no rational argument can be made that it would be more beneficial to them than other States, including those that are experiencing very rapid growth.
I will continue, as some of my colleagues will, as long as we can to prevent the passage of this legislation. It is not only our obligation to our individual States that are not getting their money back for the funds they send, but also to all the taxpayers of America who are being victimized by this back-room, porkbarrel spending process which is really remarkable.
Again I want to show my colleagues, in 1956, this was the highway bill, and now we all know what rests on our desks.
Madam President, I yield the floor.
Will the Senator yield?
I think it is well known that the President sent over three criteria, one of which was funding has to come strictly from the trust fund and not from general revenues. It is well known. It is published everywhere. I am sorry the Senator from Nevada missed it.
Yes.
Does the Senator know that the President sent over very explicit principles concerning the bill?
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Mr. President, let me thank all the Members who had their staff come down, and some Members came down over the weekend, brought their amendments, and met with my staff and met with Senator Jeffords'…
Mr. President, let me thank all the Members who had their staff come down, and some Members came down over the weekend, brought their amendments, and met with my staff and met with Senator Jeffords' staff and I believe with Senator Reid's staff. We got into a good discussion on the various amendments. We discussed with them our amendments. I am pleased with the response of those Members who understand how important it is to pass this legislation and have come to us in the week that this bill has been on the floor.
To date, I believe we have met with about 30 Member offices. We are all looking forward to working hard to accommodate the needs of these offices with as many amendments as possible. I encourage anyone out there who has amendments to bring them down, talk about them, and let's get some of this debate started.
The chairman, ranking member of the full committee of the Transportation Subcommittee--we are all ready to work with those Members.
I wish to take a moment to congratulate Senator Grassley and Senator Baucus for their work on the finance portion of this legislation. They have done a tremendous job in meeting the financial needs of this bill without increasing taxes or deficit spending. They have also brought integrity back to the highway trust fund and to the commitment we made to the American people.
The trust fund is, in essence, a user-fee-based program. You pay a gas tax and that money is then used for transportation purposes. Unfortunately, the trust fund has been used for many years for other purposes, including shifting the burden of tax policies from the general revenue to the trust fund. These tax policy benefits have nothing to do with highway use and should not burden the trust fund.
I look at this, and I have said it many time before, as a moral issue. We tell people when they pay--and they don't mind paying new taxes, even higher taxes. They are willing to pay the taxes because they want to have better roads and they assume that money is going to go into building roads. But it is not. They have been raiding the highway trust fund now for as long as I can remember.
So the Finance Committee sought to fix this unfairness to the taxpayer and has come up with a proposal to right this wrong.
Included in these proposals is a repeal of the partial exemption for ethanol-blended fuels. The tax benefit for ethanol, like nearly all energy production incentives, is transferred to the general fund through a tax credit. The same effect is applied to refunds for special categories of users such as State and local governments. These are changes that never should have been necessary. We should no more raid the highway trust fund than we should raid the Social Security trust fund. These are commitments made to the American people.
However, by bringing integrity back to the trust fund, the general fund lost a source of revenue, albeit a source that never should have been used in the first place. So in order to avoid deficit spending, Chairman Grassley closed a number of loopholes in the Tax Code and kept the general fund whole--in other words, no deficit spending.
There are those who have questioned the manner in which this was done, but I trust the chairman and the ranking member of the Finance Committee and take them at their word. They should be congratulated. I am here to thank both of them.
Because of the work of the Finance Committee, we have a bill before us that will provide over 2 million new jobs to repair our Nation's infrastructure and do so without deficit spending.
I think it is very important to keep talking about this. There is not a Member in here who cannot remember at
one time or another raiding the trust fund, to take some of this money to put it in toward reducing the deficit. That was done in the 1990s.
This is an opportunity we have, not just to pass a very aggressive highway bill and provide the jobs that go with that but also correct this wrong that has been out there for a long period of time.
Let me emphasize, we invite Members to come down and bring their amendments. While we cannot be introducing them and voting on them right now, we can still get a lot of the discussion out of the way. I think it is very important we do so, now.
Let me defend the formula. There have been a lot of people coming down and objecting to the way it was put together. I remind my colleagues what happened in TEA-21. I was here for TEA-21, here in the Senate, here in the committee working with my good friend, Senator Jeffords. We watched the way that formula worked.
In that, they had a minimum guarantee program. A minimum guarantee program is nothing but a chart; it is called section 1104. It took all the States and put a percentage down. As soon as they got 60 people happy, they figured: there is our 60 votes--and this is no way to do it.
Instead of that, we looked at donor status. We have several States such as my State of Oklahoma that have been in a donor status for many years. We looked at States that are fast growing States. We put a ceiling in there, so they could not get so much of the money there would not be anything remaining for other States. We have a floor in there. I think we have done something that is very good.
I guess you could say there are four goals that interest a lot of people, one being the donor States, those of us who have been donor States for so long we can remember when we were 70, 75 percent donors. ISTEA came along and brought the floor up to 80. Then TEA-21 brought it to 90.5. This is going to bring every State, all 50 States, at the end of this 6-year period, or by the end of that period, up to 95 percent. That is very reasonable. It is a very ambitious goal but one with which I think most of us, I am absolutely convinced, agree.
We have introduced streamlining measures in this bill that will allow us to use the dollars we have and use them to build more roads, to do more in a shorter period of time.
We are concentrating on safety. We have not concentrated on safety as much as we should have in the past. I know the senior Senator from Virginia is one who has been concerned about safety for a long period of time and is very pleased with a lot of the provisions that we have in this bill.
We haven't really focused on freight movement until this bill came along. So we are getting into all of these areas.
I just hope our colleagues understand that Senator Jeffords, Senator Reid, Senator Bond, and I have been working on this bill for over a year. That is a long time. Obviously, you will never have a formula that makes everybody happy but you can certainly have one that is fair. And we have achieved for the first time in the history of this process what I consider to be a very fair formula.
I would like to ask if Senator Jeffords has any comments he would like to make at this time.
Mr. President, first let me thank the ranking member of the committee for all the hard work and effort he has been put into this bill.
I remind Members that we spent the weekend working on amendments. We actually had an office in the Hart Building that was open and staffed by both the majority and the minority. They waded through a lot of amendments.
To move this bill along, I again encourage Members to bring their amendments down. I will not mention the names of the Senators because it may not be appropriate. I encourage Members to come down to speak on the amendments which are going to require some discussion.
We have an amendment to clarify the travel reimbursement for troops retroactive to September 25. We have an amendment on seatbelts which imposes sanctions on States that don't have primary seatbelt laws. We have amendments such as one on sanctions relating to drunk drivers, an amendment on changes to the Indian roads program, an amendment to clarify the new highway safety core program dollars which can be used for additional lanes or two-lane roads, and one to grant exemptions for 90,000 pounds on Federal aid highways--to a higher level to allow for lumber trucks and garbage trucks going to landfills.
We have a lot of amendments. I think there are about 35 amendments because staff came down and worked over the weekend on those amendments. I think it would be appropriate for them to come down right now, and not to offer their amendment but to discuss their amendment.
I suggest the absence of a quorum.
First of all, I thank the Senator from North Dakota for yielding. He will have ample time to come back and do that. I appreciate him allowing us to get back to the bill.
The Senator from Ohio has an amendment to talk about, but I encourage all Members to come down to the floor. We have time now. Later on, time is going to become very precious. As I said last Friday, come to the floor. We stayed open all weekend to work with Members on their amendments. We are doing that as we speak. We would encourage Members to come down and talk about their amendments--now that we have worked out amendments--so when the appropriate time comes, if they wish to file those amendments and to debate them and get votes on them, they will be light-years ahead if they come down now.
I want to issue that as a very strong suggestion to those members who have amendments. I thank some 30 Members who brought their amendments down over Saturday. A lot of those have been accepted in the managers' amendment.
I will be glad to yield.
Senator DeWine is waiting to speak now on his amendment, although I think the Senator is making a very good point. We have been talking about this since Friday, and we encourage people to come down.
I can assure the Senator he always does.
I yield the floor.
Madam President, that was a great statement by the Senator from Mississippi. I appreciate it very much. It is a recognition that a lot of people will think all of a sudden we came up, last week, with a bill and a formula. They don't realize we have spent a year--a year of our lives--working on a formula, looking into the same things the Senator is talking about.
I am from a donor State. We have been a donor State as long as I have been up here. The Senator talked about working on TEA-21. You also worked on ISTEA in the beginning because I was there with you. Those formulas were not as good because they were based on minimum guarantees. A minimum guarantee is you figure, how do I get 60 votes, and then we don't care what happens to the rest of you. We did not do that.
We considered the donee States, donor States, the fast-growing States, because there is a ceiling in there for them, and then there is a floor for some of the States that have either a low population or are low-yield States. All these things were taken into consideration.
So anything that is as complicated and long as this is, you can pick it apart. But I can tell you right now, we spent a lot of time on it. There are people who are interested in the transit part of it. There are some, such as the Senator from Ohio, who have been very much concerned about and made great contributions to safety. Some of them are concerned about freight and the obstacles that are out there. But we have it all in this one.
I feel good about this bill. It has taken a year to get where we are today. Frankly, you just cannot start
readjusting a formula of which you took every consideration in putting together. You have something that is fair. You cannot then start readjusting it. If you change one State, it changes all the other States, and then you have to go back and start all over.
I think there are those who would prefer we would have to do that because they don't want to have a bill. But we are not going to operate on extensions, and I have every expectation we will get a bill this week.
People say: What about the House? They are going to want an extension. They are not where we are. Well, you are not going to get them to do anything until we do something, in my opinion.
I appreciate very much the Senator from Mississippi making his comments about this bill.
I yield the floor.
Madam President, I believe it is always very difficult when we get a complicated formula. We have been talking about how complicated the formula is when you take into consideration the growth of States. We are dealing with low-population States. We have a floor. We have donor States and donee States. But the Senator from Arizona is right when he said we actually have more donor States than we had under TEA-21. The disparity amount is far less between the donor and donee States. We are calculating that now. I think the point needs to be answered, and I think we are going to be prepared to do it.
A State such as New York, for example, has gone from $1.25--in other words, $1.25 for every dollar that has been put in--down to 99.75. That is down to getting back everything they have put in, but it is dropping down substantially from the amount in the previous bill.
I have looked at States to try to defend myself in being fair on this. If you look at TEA-21--that was Senator Moynihan, Representative Schuster, and Senator Chafee--Moynihan's State went up to $1.25; Schuster, $1.20; Chafee, $2.16, and mine--and I am chairman of the committee--is only going to go up to $.95. And we are still going to be a donor State. I think that should demonstrate we are being fair on this.
To suggest that Colorado is getting a raw deal, they have the highest rate of return of any State. But formulas are complicated. I am not critical of the Senator from Arizona. There will be others down here who do not want this bill to pass, and it might not have anything to do with the formula. No one can argue that this formula is the only fair formula we have.
How many times on the floor of the Senate in previous years have Members waited until they got 60 votes and took care of 60 Members and then turned around and not cared what happens to the rest? We don't do that. It would be easy if we did that. We talk about countervotes, and go back and get it passed.
As far as the Finance Committee, I think they have done a good job. They don't have their final product out. But I know the criteria on which they are working, and I am very proud of Senator Grassley and Senator Baucus for the work they have done. It might be that there is some money being taken out of the general fund which is being put back into the highway trust fund. But that is replacing money that came out of the highway trust fund which went into the general trust fund. In one fell swoop, $8 billion went out of the general fund. These are raids on the highway trust fund.
I believe this is a moral issue. If a State pays the money, they anticipate that money being paid because they use their roads. It is going to go into road maintenance and road construction and bridge construction.
Our State of Oklahoma is still number 50 in condition of bridges. There is a lot to be done all around the country. There will be some people who do not like this bill for reasons having nothing to do with formula. But you can always take a formula and pick it apart and make it sound unfair. This is not unfair. This is a fair way to approach it. I believe it is real equity.
As I say, we are now calculating this. The States that went from a donee status to a donor status are a very small amount. But it is closing that disparity between the donee and donor States. This is precisely what we have been trying to do.
If the Senator from Nevada and the Senator from Vermont were talking about job values in this bill--look at any State and you can see the job opportunities. There is not one piece of legislation we are going to be dealing with during this entire year which is going to have the effect on jobs this is going to have. Pick out any State. You can see the total amount of new jobs. It is close to 3 million jobs--and job opportunities. We have a jobs chart, and then we have a jobs opportunity chart. We know there will be construction jobs. We know that is going to happen. But keep in mind every time you hire someone to do more construction, that person is also going to go out and buy more goods and services. They will have to manufacture more, and that is going to employ more people. We have calculated that. That is a very accurate figure.
I know there are a lot of Members who are going to be opposing this because they may not like some of the freight provisions. Perhaps their States are not treated in a way that other States are treated because they do not happen to be a poor city or they do not happen to be a terminal city. Nonetheless, I think Senator Reid made a good statement when he said this is not just one State but it is the United States of America.
Again, on the particular State of Arizona, that is a 40-percent increase, which I think is very fair. In fact, that is a greater increase than the average increase States have.
Let me say to the Senator from North Dakota that he has been very kind in working into our schedule at times when we were not working on the highway bill. I do appreciate it very much.
I object.
Mr. President, I rise to introduce the Protecting American Democracy Act of 2003, legislation that is vital to ensuring that the voting systems used in our Federal elections are as secure as possible…
Mr. President, I rise to introduce the Protecting American Democracy Act of 2003, legislation that is vital to ensuring that the voting systems used in our Federal elections are as secure as possible while also ensuring that each and every voter in our Nation has an equal opportunity to verify his or her vote before that vote is cast and permanently recorded. At its core, this legislation will ensure that every vote is properly counted, ensuring the integrity of each vote, which is at the heart of our democracy.
In recent months, there has been discussion about the increasing use of electronic voting systems such as direct recording electronic systems (DREs), the first completely computerized voting systems. Computerized voting systems can have many advantages. As the Congressional Research
Service has reported, they are arguably the most user-friendly and versatile of any current voting system. Among many features, such voting machines can be easily programmed to display ballots in different languages and can be made fully accessible for persons with disabilities, including the visually impaired. They can also prevent overvotes and spoilage of ballots due to extraneous marks since no document ballot is involved. In addition, fully computerized systems have the ability to notify voters of undervotes. Presently, no other kind of voting system possesses so many features. For this reason, it is expected that within the next two years, with funding authorized under the Help America Vote Act of 2002 (``HAVA''), state and local jurisdictions across the country will begin purchasing fully computerized systems.
One of the disadvantages of these electronic voting systems, however, is that they do not give voters an opportunity to verify their votes-- to confirm that the voting machinery is registering the vote that the voter intended to cast--before the vote is cast and permanently recorded. In addition, electronic voting systems raise other concerns because of the ability of the software in the voting system to be compromised, or worse, maliciously attacked, by someone who may want to alter the voting results. Indeed, a number of recent studies, including the July 2001 study by Caltech/MIT, the July 2003 study by Johns Hopkins and Rice universities, the September 2003 study by the Science Applications International Corporation, requested by the Governor of Maryland, and the two November 2003 studies conducted by Compuware Corporation and InfoSENTRY, requested by the Ohio Secretary of State, pointed to significant and disturbing security risks in electronic voting systems and related administrative procedures and processes.
That is why in addition to ensuring that voters have an opportunity to verify their vote, it is vital that we improve the security of voting system technology, and that means not only the kind of software that is used but also how, for example, that software is designed, stored, disseminated, updated, field tested, and used in an actual election. This is a developing consensus among computer security experts that not only is the security of electronic voting systems wholly inadequate, but that the security policies and procedures that State and local election officials, voting system vendors, and others use are non-existent, inadequate, or, if they exist, are not followed, which is the same as having no policy at all.
Our Nation is the greatest Nation on earth and it is the leading democracy in the world. Central to that democracy is ability of Americans to have confidence in the voting system used to register and record their votes. This is a fundamental standard that must be met. I have concerns, however, that our Nation is falling short of that standard.
That is why I am today introducing the ``Protecting American Democracy Act of 2003,'' which amends by adding a voter verification requirement for voting systems to give each voter an opportunity to verify his or her vote at the time the vote is cast. Voters will be given an opportunity to correct any error made by the voting system before the permanent voting record is preserved.
While requiring that all election jurisdictions give voters the ability to verify their votes, this legislation also gives States and local jurisdictions the flexibility to employ the most appropriate, accurate, and secure voter verification technologies, which may include voter-verifiable paper ballots, votemeters, modular voting architecture, and/or encrypted votes, for their State or jurisdiction in a uniform and nondiscriminatory manner. Any voter verification method used must ensure that voters with disabilities and other affected voters have the ability to cast their vote in private, and language minorities must have equal access in verifying their vote. This is important if we are to ensure that all Americans--including the more than 20 million voters who are visually impaired, the more than 40 million Americans who lack basic literacy skills, and millions of language minorities--will be able to exercise their constitutional right to vote.
To address critical security issues, the ``Protecting American Democracy Act of 2003'' also amends HAVA by adding a security requirement for voting systems to ensure that voting systems are as secure as possible. Specifically, voting systems must adhere to the security requirements for Federal computer systems as required under current law or, alternatively, more stringent requirements adopted by the Election Assistance Commission. Currently no such requirement exists. I believe that, at minimum, the systems used by the people of the United States to exercise their constitutional right to vote, the hallmark of our democracy, should be at least as secure as the computer systems used by the Federal Government.
The security requirements must also provide that no voting system shall contain any wireless device, which reduces the risk that hackers will be able to attack any electronic voting system. In addition, all software and hardware used in any electronic voting system must be certified by laboratories accredited by the Commission as meeting all security requirements.
The Act also requires the Election Assistance Commission to report to Congress within 6 months of enactment regarding a proposed security review and certification process for all voting systems. Within 3 months of enactment, the Government Accounting Office, unless the Commission has already completed the following report, must issue a report to Congress on the operational and management systems that should be employed to safeguard the security of voting systems, together with a schedule for how quickly each such measure should be implemented.
Lastly, immediately upon enactment, the National Institute of Standards and technology (NIST) must provide security consultation services to State and local jurisdiction. Two million dollars in Fiscal Years 2004 through 2006 are authorized to be appropriated to assist NIST in providing these security consultation services.
I cannot think of a more significant risk to our democracy than for Americans to lack complete confidence in the voting systems used to cast and count their votes in Federal elections. For all those who believe that in a democracy, there is no more important task than assuring the sanctity of votes, this should be an easy step to take to assure it. For this reason, I urge all of my colleagues to support this legislation. I ask unanimous consent that the text of this bill be printed in the Record.
Mr. President, today, I am introducing a bill that seeks to begin a dialogue on one of the most important yet neglected aspects of our health care system--health care quality. this is an enormous issue that affects every single one of us who has ever needed medical care, and it affects all taxpayers because quality care has such potential to avoid waste and save millions of dollars in health care costs. I have raised many of these ideas as amendments in other contexts, such as the Medicare debate on S. 1, and the debate over S. 720, the Patient Safety and Quality Improvement Act of 2003. I intend to continue working with my colleagues on improving these ideas and proposing additional concepts. But with this bill today, I seek to put forward a package of ideas, provoke conversation, and present this as a first step in making quality a focus of my health care efforts next year. My goal with these efforts is to both improve quality and outcomes, and reduce costs by encouraging care that is more effective.
There is no reason why we cannot achieve this. We have the most advanced medical system in human history--the finest medical institutions, the newest treatments, the best trained health care professionals. But in spite of the best intentions of clinicians and patients, our health care system is plagued with underuse, overuse, and misuse. currently, only about 50 percent of care that is known to be effective is provided, and the care given is supported by solid scientific evidence, and the pace of dissemination of new evidence is painfully slow. It may take up to 17 years for treatments found to be effective to become common practice.
Much of the overuse or misuse of health services stems from the fragmentation of our system. In a recent study in Santa Barbara, CA, 20 percent of lab tests and x-rays were conducted solely because previous results were unavailable. One in seven hospitalizations occurs because information is unavailable, and a shocking percentage of the time, physicians do not find patient information that had previously been recorded in a paper-based medical record.
Despite all of our Nation's medical advances, health quality is becoming even more endangered in some respects. Nursing care which is often shown to be a decisive factor for hospital patient outcomes, its in grave shortage, and a majority of U.S. physicians surveyed by the Commonwealth Fund perceive their ability to provide quality care as having worsened over the last 5 years.
Additionally, even as the quality of health care we purchase lags, our spending on inadequate and wasteful care is spiraling out of control. Premiums increased 13 percent last year, and health care costs are increasing at nearly 10 times the rate of inflation. To make matters worse, the public health system is straining to meet the challenges of bioterrorism or emerging infections, the number of uninsured Americans is rising, clinicians are leaving practice, and the older adult population is set to double by 2040.
The reason is not because doctors aren't trying hard enough, or hospitals are at fault. That we're able to get good health care at all is testament to the genius and heroism of doctors and nurses who deliver care, despite all the obstacles, despite every effort of the system to hinder them.
But what our medical system requires of providers is a little like asking pilots to routinely land planes without any information from the control tower. The best of them can do it--they could land a plane with one arm around their backs missing key information and confirmations, but why force them to do it? Why deny them critical information when it could be easily available? There is no plausible reason for denying needed information, especially when life and death are at stake.
That's unfortunately exactly what our health care system says to doctors, nurses, and hospitals. Physicians for example spend four years in medical school, and then several years more in their residency training, cramming medical information into their heads. Then we expect them to look at a patient taking four different drugs, with a heart condition, and immediately remember any drug-drug interactions that could occur. We ask them to do it without looking up any reference materials. We ask them to do it in the few minutes that they have with each patient given the ever-shorter visits, and ever-increasing patient and paperwork load. Moreover, in their free time, they are expected to keep up with all the new journal articles and learn about every new drug.
Yet hand-held computers can now allow the doctor to pull up up-to- date information immediately, right at the bedside, if he or she has any question. And NIH spends billions of dollars in research to generate that information. Shouldn't that investment reap results for the patient as quickly as possible? This bill seeks to provide the direction that would support such technology and make it widely available to physicians.
Right now, doctors, nurses, and hospitals are holding the health care system up, preventing utter collapse by sheer, heroic, force of will. Instead of the clinicians supporting the system, we should build a system that supports clinicians instead.
The premise of this legislation is that information, in the hands of the right people at the right time, drives quality and value. We need to empower patients and health care providers to make the right choices. And to do that, health care decisionsmakers--providers, payers, and patients--need to have access to the right information, where and when it is needed, securely and privately.
This legislation seeks to: 1. Generate information about health quality through increased research, increased public reporting along key quality measures, and standardization of those measures to assure comparability and usability of reported information; 2. Ensure that payers, providers and patients get information in a usable form so they can make effective decisions; and 3. Reduce barriers to the development of an IT infrastructure that is so critical to achieving those first 2 goals.
Eighty percent of the care delivered today is not backed by sound clinical
research. That is why we need to do more research, and see if the care we provide today has sound justification in science. But even where we know what to do, we don't always do it because the information is insufficiently disseminated and utilized. Studies have shown some procedures being performed even when they have not met accepted criteria for appropriateness: In one study, of all the non-emergent, noncancerous hysterectomies performed, only 30 percent had been properly worked up and met the full medical criteria for necessity. In another study, about one-fourth of coronary angiographies and upper gastrointestinal endoscopies did not meet standards of medical appropriateness.
On the flip side, in situations where the benefits of an intervention are clear, many patients do not receive the indicated care: Very few hospitalized patients at-risk for pneumococcal pneumonia who had not been previously vaccinated end up being vaccinated during their hospital stay. Routine peak flow measurements are conducted in only 28 percent of pediatric patients with asthma. And only one-half of diabetics receive an annual eye exam.
We know what good health care means in these areas, but we don't practice it, in part because that information may not be readily available, and regardless, there is no incentive for quality. We are suggesting--track the outcomes, share that information with patients, providers, and insurers, and ultimately, pay for performance.
This bill will help us become better purchasers of care, and help us take the first steps toward aligning the incentives so that higher quality is rewarded. I ask unanimous consent that the attached article from last week's New York Times be printed in the Record showing how our current reimbursement system is gravely misaligned. Under the current system, higher quality can be penalized, while worse care can ironically be more profitable.
Today, by introducing these ideas for the purpose of seeking feedback from my colleagues and experts in the field, I am taking the first step toward improving our health care system for everyone and saving money. I invite interested colleagues to join me in partnership on this important venture and look forward to taking strong, positive action next year to improve health quality for all Americans.
Mr. President, I am pleased to introduce today with my distinguished colleague from New York, Senator Clinton, the National Highway Safety Act of 2003. It would be our intention in the course of the…
Mr. President, I am pleased to introduce today with my distinguished colleague from New York, Senator Clinton, the National Highway Safety Act of 2003. It would be our intention in the course of the deliberations next year on the reauthorization or, as we call it, the successive piece of legislation to TEA-21, that this bill, which we introduce today, would be incorporated as an amendment.
As the Congress prepares to consider legislation next year to enact a new 6-year surface transportation law to succeed TEA-21, our foremost responsibility, in my judgment and in the judgment of many, and in the judgment of the President of the United States, must be to improve highway safety for the driving public. Simply by increasing the number of Americans who will buckle up is the most effective step that can be taken to save the their lives and the lives of others. That is the single most important step.
I am privileged to serve on the Environment and Public Works Committee that has now completed its markup of the TEA-21 reauthorization bill. The bill addresses, as it should, highway safety measures, such as how to build safer roads, how to do use new technologies to improve safety. But, statistics show that the greatest measure of safety, again, to drivers, passengers, and possibly third parties not connected with the vehicle, is through the use of a seatbelt. It is remarkable, the lives that have been saved through the use of this simple device. I have, through my career in the Senate--I say with modesty--been associated with, and indeed I think in the forefront of, trying to move forward on seatbelt legislation. I will not belabor what this humble Senator has done working with others through the years, but we are very proud today that America has about a 79 percent use rate of seatbelts. That has been translated into the saving of tens of thousands of lives and injuries in automobile accidents.
Those are the facts. Are we just going to have a standstill, or are we going to move forward? Senator Clinton and I think we should move forward with this somewhat new approach. I will address the technical aspects as we go along.
We have debated the benefits of seatbelt use on many occasions in this body, and elsewhere across America. And whether it is in the town forums we conduct, town meetings, or here on the floor of the Senate, there is always that individual who comes back: Don't tell me what I have to do. What does it matter to you, John Warner--or to any other colleague with whom I am privileged to serve--what does it matter to you whether I buckle up?
Well, let's take a look. No one disputes that the absence of a seatbelt causes more serious loss of life and injury and, to some extent, crashes. The statistics show that with the impact associated with the crash, to the extent the driver can maintain, as best he can control of the vehicle in those fatal microseconds, often fatal, perhaps the severity of the crash, and perhaps the loss of life can be reduced by the use of a safety belt--simply said.
Accidents involving unbelted drivers result in a significant cost to the wallet, out of your pocket. Many people are rushed from the accident scene to various emergency facilities. All of that has the initial cost of the law enforcement that responds, the rescue squads that respond, and eventually the emergency room or whatever medical facility you might have the good fortune to be taken to, to hopefully save you your life. That isn't free. There is a cost. Maybe it is a hidden cost in the budgets of the towns and the communities and the States, but there is definitely a cost. Regrettably, a number of persons who suffer those types of injuries are uninsured. Again, the cost often devolves down on the good old hard-working taxpayers; in most instances, the taxpayers who buckle up.
This also is rather interesting and fascinating. When an accident happens, regrettably, on our roads and highways across this great Nation, we try to refrain from rubbernecking. Nevertheless, chances are that we take a glance. More often than not, the accident with the combined slowdown of those passing the accident causes significant congestion for some considerable portion of time. Either the lane in which we are traveling moves very slowly because of the accident or, indeed, we come to a standstill, as often is the case when a lane is closed to clear an accident. That standstill frequently is necessitated because of the severity of the injuries experienced in that accident. It takes the response team longer in their carefully trained steps to extricate the injured person, to give the initial treatment, and then to carefully transport that individual, if necessary, to a medical facility. That takes time. That road is backed up.
That is lost time for your mission on the road, be it for business, family, or pleasure. That is lost time and productivity. Behind you often are trucks and other vehicles involved in commerce. That is lost time and delay due to the seriousness occasioned by injuries and accidents where there has been the lack of use of seatbelts. It is as simple as that.
The legislation Senator Clinton and I are introducing today will take an important step forward for the States to adopt either a primary safety belt law, or take steps of their own devising to meet a 90 percent seat belt use rate--not the Warner-Clinton bill or the legislative measure put forth by the administration upon which Senator Clinton and I draw for concepts of certain portions. The States can decide for themselves how they achieve a 90-percent goal of the use of seatbelts in their respective States. That is the purpose of this legislation--to move every State to a 90-percent use rate for safety belts.
In a letter dated November 12, 2003, to Chairman Inhofe of the Committee on the Environment and Public Works, on which I am privileged to serve, Secretary Mineta states:
President Bush and I believe that increasing safety belt
usage rates is the single most effective means to decrease
highway fatalities and injuries.
That is explicit and clear. The Secretary goes on to say:
The surest way for a State to increase safety belt usage is
through the passage of a primary safety belt law.
I have had this debate with Governors, former Governors, even in this Chamber with former Governors. I think they would tell you that a primary safety belt law is a tough piece of State legislation to pass solely on its own. Frankly, it needs the impetus of Uncle Sam, the impetus of the Congress of the United States to move that process in the States forward, so the local politicians can shake their fist saying, it is Washington that has done it again--more regulation, more direction--you know the arguments. But I think quietly in the hearts of those State legislatures is the thought that we will improve safety in my State. We will improve the chance of survivability on the roads in my State. So that is why we are here today. I ask unanimous consent that the full text of Secretary Mineta's letter be printed in the Record at the conclusion of my remarks.
As provided in our legislation, the Warner-Clinton bill, States can increase seatbelt use either by enacting, as I said, a primary seatbelt law--everybody knows what a primary seatbelt law is and how it works. It means a law enforcement officer can literally stop a vehicle if they observe that the individual is not wearing his or her seatbelt. It is as simple as that. But a State, if they decide not to enact a primary safety belt law, can, by implementing their own strategies, whatever they may be--and there is a lot of innovation out in the States--that would result in a 90-percent safety belt use rate. So that is a challenge to the States.
The current national belt use, as I said, is 79 percent. But many States--those that have the primary law are sometimes at 90, or even above 90, but those that do not have the primary seatbelt law are down sometimes in the 60 percentile. It is the weight of the primary States that carries the percentile and brings it up to 79 from those States that don't have an effective law. States with their primary safety belt law have the greatest success for drivers wearing seatbelts.
On an average, States with the primary seatbelt law have a 10 to 15 percent higher seatbelt use compared to those with a secondary system. This demonstrates that secondary seatbelt
laws are far more limited in their effectiveness than a primary law.
Essentially, the secondary laws say that if a law enforcement officer has cause other than a perceived or actual seatbelt violation--namely, the driver didn't have it buckled--if they have cause to stop that car, for example, for a speeding offense or a reckless driving offense or indeed an accident and they observed there has been no use of the seatbelt, then in the course of proceeding to enforce the several laws of the State as regards speeding or reckless driving, or whatever the case may be, they can add a second penalty to address the absence of the use of the seatbelt in that State.
Drivers are gamblers. They say: Oh, well, don't worry, I will not buckle up. State law doesn't require it. Unless they stop me--and they are not going to stop me today. It is that gambling attitude that, more often than not, will cause an accident. Then it is too late.
So we come forward today to build on our national programs. We are building on what we did in TEA-21. I was privileged to be on the committee. I was chairman of the subcommittee 6 years ago. I worked with Senator Chafee, who was chairman of the full committee, and we drove hard to make progress with the seatbelt laws, and we did it. We basically put aside a very considerable sum of money to encourage States--again, using their own devices--to increase uses. As a direct consequence of what we did in TEA-21, there has been an 11 percent increase in these 6 years in the use of seatbelts.
Sadly, traffic deaths in 2002 rose to the highest level in over a decade. It is astonishing. Of the nearly 43,000 people killed on our highways, over half were not wearing their seatbelts. That is according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. And 9,200 of these deaths might have been prevented if the safety belt had been used.
Those are alarming statistics. Automobile crashes are the leading cause of death for Americans age 2 to 34. Stop to think of that: age 2, that means a child; that means a parent neglected to buckle up a child. Automobile crashes are the leading cause of death for Americans age 2 to 34. That is our Nation's youth. Do we have a higher calling in the Congress of the United States than to do everything we can to foster the dreams and ambitions and the productivity of our Nation's youth? I think not. And this is one of the ways.
Last year, 6 out of 10 children who died in car crashes did not have the belt on--6 out of 10; that is over half. I plead with colleagues to join with me, join with the President who has taken this initiative.
My primary responsibility in the Senate--and this is one of the reasons I got interested in this subject--is the welfare of the men and women in the Armed Forces. I say to colleagues, again, the statistics are tragic. Traffic fatalities are the leading non-combat cause of death for our soldiers, sailors, airmen, and marines. They are in that high-risk age category, 18 to 35.
Someone even took a look at the statistics, the total of the fatalities last year, and said that represents in deaths approximately the size of the average U.S. Army battalion. That is several companies and maybe a reinforced element. Just think, that is the magnitude in one category of those who serve our United States, the men and women in the Armed Forces.
I cannot think of any reason why we all cannot join behind this effort. That alone is a driving impetus for this Senator.
The time is long overdue for a national policy to strengthen seatbelt use rates. I said a national policy, and that is what this bill represents, either through States enacting a primary seatbelt law or giving far greater attention to public awareness programs that result in more drivers and passengers wearing safety belts. Our goal is 90 percent--90 percent.
I have been privileged to serve on this committee 17 years, and I, together with many others, notably my dear friend and late chairman, Senator Chafee, addressed this issue. Our committee is rich in the history of focusing revenue from the highway trust fund on effective safety programs. It goes back through many chairmen and members of the committee.
With jurisdiction over the largest share of the highway trust fund, our committee has had the vision to tackle important national safety problems. Regrettably, I report to you that the recent markup of the committee on the proposed successor to the TEA-21 legislation, which we will take up next year, does provide more funding to help build safer roads--that is a step forward--but it does not have, in my judgment, that provision which represents a step up from what we did in TEA-21, that provision that would represent a recognition for the President's initiative. He has taken a decidedly strong initiative to increase the use of seatbelts. It is absent from the bill, and that is why, I say respectfully to Chairman Inhofe and others on that committee, we need a provision to strengthen and to move forward the position of the Congress on the issue of increased use of safety belts. That is the purpose of this legislation.
It is just unfortunate, but those with reckless intent quickly disregard responsible behavior and drive unbelted at excessive speeds and many times with the use of alcohol. So no increased dollars for improved road engineering, which is in this bill, can defy in many instances and the type of personal conduct that results in reckless behavior. It is as simple as that.
Our automobiles now come equipped with crash avoidance technologies and are more crashworthy than ever before, but these advances are only part of the solution.
In repeated testimony before the Environment and Public Works Committee, from the administration, our States, safety groups, and the highway insurance industry, we are told that three main causes of traffic deaths and injuries are unbelted drivers, speed, and alcohol.
The formula we have devised in this legislation does have a reduction in the amount a State receives under this proposed bill that we will consider next year when they fail to achieve the 90 percent safety belt use rate. It is as simple as that. But the formula is patterned directly after the law that is on the books now with respect to the .08 legal blood alcohol content level.
The net effect of this legislation is simply to recognize we are asking that the same type of sanction policy with regard to one of the three major causes of death--alcohol--be equated to a second cause of death and injury, and that is absence of the use of seatbelts, bringing into parallel two of the three principal causes of death and injury on today's highways.
The administration put forward an innovative safety belt program, as I said, under the leadership of the President that was a major component of their new core transportation program, the Highway Safety Improvement Program. Regrettably, this recommendation is not included in the bill that will come before my committee next year as a consequence of the markup seeking reauthorization of TEA-21.
The proposed reauthorization bill also does not include the current program, the Safety Belt Incentive Grant program, that we even had in the previous highway bill, of which I was primarily one of the authors. Not only are we not going forward, but in a sense we are stepping backwards. I just cannot understand how we can, as a body, not observe our responsibility to do what we can to provide the necessary incentive to the States to take these steps.
Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.
Mr. President, I am pleased to introduce today with my distinguished colleague from New York, Senator Clinton, the National Highway Safety Act of 2003. It would be our intention in the course of the…
Mr. President, I am pleased to introduce today with my distinguished colleague from New York, Senator Clinton, the National Highway Safety Act of 2003. It would be our intention in the course of the deliberations next year on the reauthorization or, as we call it, the successive piece of legislation to TEA-21, that this bill, which we introduce today, would be incorporated as an amendment.
As the Congress prepares to consider legislation next year to enact a new 6-year surface transportation law to succeed TEA-21, our foremost responsibility, in my judgment and in the judgment of many, and in the judgment of the President of the United States, must be to improve highway safety for the driving public. Simply by increasing the number of Americans who will buckle up is the most effective step that can be taken to save the their lives and the lives of others. That is the single most important step.
I am privileged to serve on the Environment and Public Works Committee that has now completed its markup of the TEA-21 reauthorization bill. The bill addresses, as it should, highway safety measures, such as how to build safer roads, how to do use new technologies to improve safety. But, statistics show that the greatest measure of safety, again, to drivers, passengers, and possibly third parties not connected with the vehicle, is through the use of a seatbelt. It is remarkable, the lives that have been saved through the use of this simple device. I have, through my career in the Senate--I say with modesty--been associated with, and indeed I think in the forefront of, trying to move forward on seatbelt legislation. I will not belabor what this humble Senator has done working with others through the years, but we are very proud today that America has about a 79 percent use rate of seatbelts. That has been translated into the saving of tens of thousands of lives and injuries in automobile accidents.
Those are the facts. Are we just going to have a standstill, or are we going to move forward? Senator Clinton and I think we should move forward with this somewhat new approach. I will address the technical aspects as we go along.
We have debated the benefits of seatbelt use on many occasions in this body, and elsewhere across America. And whether it is in the town forums we conduct, town meetings, or here on the floor of the Senate, there is always that individual who comes back: Don't tell me what I have to do. What does it matter to you, John Warner--or to any other colleague with whom I am privileged to serve--what does it matter to you whether I buckle up?
Well, let's take a look. No one disputes that the absence of a seatbelt causes more serious loss of life and injury and, to some extent, crashes. The statistics show that with the impact associated with the crash, to the extent the driver can maintain, as best he can control of the vehicle in those fatal microseconds, often fatal, perhaps the severity of the crash, and perhaps the loss of life can be reduced by the use of a safety belt--simply said.
Accidents involving unbelted drivers result in a significant cost to the wallet, out of your pocket. Many people are rushed from the accident scene to various emergency facilities. All of that has the initial cost of the law enforcement that responds, the rescue squads that respond, and eventually the emergency room or whatever medical facility you might have the good fortune to be taken to, to hopefully save you your life. That isn't free. There is a cost. Maybe it is a hidden cost in the budgets of the towns and the communities and the States, but there is definitely a cost. Regrettably, a number of persons who suffer those types of injuries are uninsured. Again, the cost often devolves down on the good old hard-working taxpayers; in most instances, the taxpayers who buckle up.
This also is rather interesting and fascinating. When an accident happens, regrettably, on our roads and highways across this great Nation, we try to refrain from rubbernecking. Nevertheless, chances are that we take a glance. More often than not, the accident with the combined slowdown of those passing the accident causes significant congestion for some considerable portion of time. Either the lane in which we are traveling moves very slowly because of the accident or, indeed, we come to a standstill, as often is the case when a lane is closed to clear an accident. That standstill frequently is necessitated because of the severity of the injuries experienced in that accident. It takes the response team longer in their carefully trained steps to extricate the injured person, to give the initial treatment, and then to carefully transport that individual, if necessary, to a medical facility. That takes time. That road is backed up.
That is lost time for your mission on the road, be it for business, family, or pleasure. That is lost time and productivity. Behind you often are trucks and other vehicles involved in commerce. That is lost time and delay due to the seriousness occasioned by injuries and accidents where there has been the lack of use of seatbelts. It is as simple as that.
The legislation Senator Clinton and I are introducing today will take an important step forward for the States to adopt either a primary safety belt law, or take steps of their own devising to meet a 90 percent seat belt use rate--not the Warner-Clinton bill or the legislative measure put forth by the administration upon which Senator Clinton and I draw for concepts of certain portions. The States can decide for themselves how they achieve a 90-percent goal of the use of seatbelts in their respective States. That is the purpose of this legislation--to move every State to a 90-percent use rate for safety belts.
In a letter dated November 12, 2003, to Chairman Inhofe of the Committee on the Environment and Public Works, on which I am privileged to serve, Secretary Mineta states:
President Bush and I believe that increasing safety belt
usage rates is the single most effective means to decrease
highway fatalities and injuries.
That is explicit and clear. The Secretary goes on to say:
The surest way for a State to increase safety belt usage is
through the passage of a primary safety belt law.
I have had this debate with Governors, former Governors, even in this Chamber with former Governors. I think they would tell you that a primary safety belt law is a tough piece of State legislation to pass solely on its own. Frankly, it needs the impetus of Uncle Sam, the impetus of the Congress of the United States to move that process in the States forward, so the local politicians can shake their fist saying, it is Washington that has done it again--more regulation, more direction--you know the arguments. But I think quietly in the hearts of those State legislatures is the thought that we will improve safety in my State. We will improve the chance of survivability on the roads in my State. So that is why we are here today. I ask unanimous consent that the full text of Secretary Mineta's letter be printed in the Record at the conclusion of my remarks.
As provided in our legislation, the Warner-Clinton bill, States can increase seatbelt use either by enacting, as I said, a primary seatbelt law--everybody knows what a primary seatbelt law is and how it works. It means a law enforcement officer can literally stop a vehicle if they observe that the individual is not wearing his or her seatbelt. It is as simple as that. But a State, if they decide not to enact a primary safety belt law, can, by implementing their own strategies, whatever they may be--and there is a lot of innovation out in the States--that would result in a 90-percent safety belt use rate. So that is a challenge to the States.
The current national belt use, as I said, is 79 percent. But many States--those that have the primary law are sometimes at 90, or even above 90, but those that do not have the primary seatbelt law are down sometimes in the 60 percentile. It is the weight of the primary States that carries the percentile and brings it up to 79 from those States that don't have an effective law. States with their primary safety belt law have the greatest success for drivers wearing seatbelts.
On an average, States with the primary seatbelt law have a 10 to 15 percent higher seatbelt use compared to those with a secondary system. This demonstrates that secondary seatbelt
laws are far more limited in their effectiveness than a primary law.
Essentially, the secondary laws say that if a law enforcement officer has cause other than a perceived or actual seatbelt violation--namely, the driver didn't have it buckled--if they have cause to stop that car, for example, for a speeding offense or a reckless driving offense or indeed an accident and they observed there has been no use of the seatbelt, then in the course of proceeding to enforce the several laws of the State as regards speeding or reckless driving, or whatever the case may be, they can add a second penalty to address the absence of the use of the seatbelt in that State.
Drivers are gamblers. They say: Oh, well, don't worry, I will not buckle up. State law doesn't require it. Unless they stop me--and they are not going to stop me today. It is that gambling attitude that, more often than not, will cause an accident. Then it is too late.
So we come forward today to build on our national programs. We are building on what we did in TEA-21. I was privileged to be on the committee. I was chairman of the subcommittee 6 years ago. I worked with Senator Chafee, who was chairman of the full committee, and we drove hard to make progress with the seatbelt laws, and we did it. We basically put aside a very considerable sum of money to encourage States--again, using their own devices--to increase uses. As a direct consequence of what we did in TEA-21, there has been an 11 percent increase in these 6 years in the use of seatbelts.
Sadly, traffic deaths in 2002 rose to the highest level in over a decade. It is astonishing. Of the nearly 43,000 people killed on our highways, over half were not wearing their seatbelts. That is according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. And 9,200 of these deaths might have been prevented if the safety belt had been used.
Those are alarming statistics. Automobile crashes are the leading cause of death for Americans age 2 to 34. Stop to think of that: age 2, that means a child; that means a parent neglected to buckle up a child. Automobile crashes are the leading cause of death for Americans age 2 to 34. That is our Nation's youth. Do we have a higher calling in the Congress of the United States than to do everything we can to foster the dreams and ambitions and the productivity of our Nation's youth? I think not. And this is one of the ways.
Last year, 6 out of 10 children who died in car crashes did not have the belt on--6 out of 10; that is over half. I plead with colleagues to join with me, join with the President who has taken this initiative.
My primary responsibility in the Senate--and this is one of the reasons I got interested in this subject--is the welfare of the men and women in the Armed Forces. I say to colleagues, again, the statistics are tragic. Traffic fatalities are the leading non-combat cause of death for our soldiers, sailors, airmen, and marines. They are in that high-risk age category, 18 to 35.
Someone even took a look at the statistics, the total of the fatalities last year, and said that represents in deaths approximately the size of the average U.S. Army battalion. That is several companies and maybe a reinforced element. Just think, that is the magnitude in one category of those who serve our United States, the men and women in the Armed Forces.
I cannot think of any reason why we all cannot join behind this effort. That alone is a driving impetus for this Senator.
The time is long overdue for a national policy to strengthen seatbelt use rates. I said a national policy, and that is what this bill represents, either through States enacting a primary seatbelt law or giving far greater attention to public awareness programs that result in more drivers and passengers wearing safety belts. Our goal is 90 percent--90 percent.
I have been privileged to serve on this committee 17 years, and I, together with many others, notably my dear friend and late chairman, Senator Chafee, addressed this issue. Our committee is rich in the history of focusing revenue from the highway trust fund on effective safety programs. It goes back through many chairmen and members of the committee.
With jurisdiction over the largest share of the highway trust fund, our committee has had the vision to tackle important national safety problems. Regrettably, I report to you that the recent markup of the committee on the proposed successor to the TEA-21 legislation, which we will take up next year, does provide more funding to help build safer roads--that is a step forward--but it does not have, in my judgment, that provision which represents a step up from what we did in TEA-21, that provision that would represent a recognition for the President's initiative. He has taken a decidedly strong initiative to increase the use of seatbelts. It is absent from the bill, and that is why, I say respectfully to Chairman Inhofe and others on that committee, we need a provision to strengthen and to move forward the position of the Congress on the issue of increased use of safety belts. That is the purpose of this legislation.
It is just unfortunate, but those with reckless intent quickly disregard responsible behavior and drive unbelted at excessive speeds and many times with the use of alcohol. So no increased dollars for improved road engineering, which is in this bill, can defy in many instances and the type of personal conduct that results in reckless behavior. It is as simple as that.
Our automobiles now come equipped with crash avoidance technologies and are more crashworthy than ever before, but these advances are only part of the solution.
In repeated testimony before the Environment and Public Works Committee, from the administration, our States, safety groups, and the highway insurance industry, we are told that three main causes of traffic deaths and injuries are unbelted drivers, speed, and alcohol.
The formula we have devised in this legislation does have a reduction in the amount a State receives under this proposed bill that we will consider next year when they fail to achieve the 90 percent safety belt use rate. It is as simple as that. But the formula is patterned directly after the law that is on the books now with respect to the .08 legal blood alcohol content level.
The net effect of this legislation is simply to recognize we are asking that the same type of sanction policy with regard to one of the three major causes of death--alcohol--be equated to a second cause of death and injury, and that is absence of the use of seatbelts, bringing into parallel two of the three principal causes of death and injury on today's highways.
The administration put forward an innovative safety belt program, as I said, under the leadership of the President that was a major component of their new core transportation program, the Highway Safety Improvement Program. Regrettably, this recommendation is not included in the bill that will come before my committee next year as a consequence of the markup seeking reauthorization of TEA-21.
The proposed reauthorization bill also does not include the current program, the Safety Belt Incentive Grant program, that we even had in the previous highway bill, of which I was primarily one of the authors. Not only are we not going forward, but in a sense we are stepping backwards. I just cannot understand how we can, as a body, not observe our responsibility to do what we can to provide the necessary incentive to the States to take these steps.
Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.
Mr. President, I come to the floor today to thank the leaders of the Environment and Public Works Committee, Chairman Inhofe, Ranking Member Jeffords, as well as Senators Bond and Reid, for all the…
Mr. President, I come to the floor today to thank the leaders of the Environment and Public Works Committee, Chairman Inhofe, Ranking Member Jeffords, as well as Senators Bond and Reid, for all the hard work they put in to produce this transportation bill. This is really a transportation bill that does a number of different things, but one thing it does do is stress the importance of safety programs.
The bill before us today is a revolutionary bill. It is known as SAFETEA. That is what we are calling it. In many respects it certainly deserves this title. I salute my two colleagues, whom I see on the floor, and thank them for their fine work in this area.
A strong emphasis on safety programs is vital because in the year 2002, the last year for which we have complete records, over 42,000 of our fellow citizens--in fact, the exact number is 42,815--were lost in this country. That is how many fellow citizens were killed in auto fatalities.
The No. 1 killer of Americans between the ages of 4 and 34 in this country is auto fatalities. That is an amazing thing when you think about it. Think about all the other diseases and problems there are in this country, whether it be cancer, all the other things someone could die from, but the No. 1 killer of our young people today is auto fatalities.
If you look at the age group of 16, 17, 18, 19, the figures go off the charts for that age group. That is what is killing our young people today--automobiles.
In the next 12 minutes, to be precise, at least 1 person will be killed in an automobile accident in this country, while nearly 6 people will be injured in just the next 60 seconds. Tragically, within the last 2 weeks, in my home State of Ohio, two of our soldiers were killed in automobile accidents, one of whom was just back from Iraq on a 2- week pass.
Sadly, though, it seems these deaths are something we as a society take for granted. We tolerate it. We put up with it. Frankly, we don't pay much attention to it. How many times every night when we turn on the news do we hear about someone being killed? Unless they are from our local community, unless we know them, we don't think a thing about it. We tolerate it.
If a foreign enemy were doing this to us, we would not tolerate it. We would be up in arms. Someone has said these automobile deaths are the equivalent of a 747 going down every 2 days in this country. If that were happening, it would, of course, be on CNN. It would be breaking news. We would be literally up in arms. We would be demanding the President of the United States and this Congress do something about it. Yet these auto fatalities that occur hour by hour, day by day, minute by minute, go on and on and for some reason we have become immune to it, hardened to it, really. Tragically these deaths just continue.
That is why I am so pleased the bill before us does go a long way to help to address several safety concerns that can make a difference and can save lives on our roads. The EPW Committee leaders deserve praise for elevating safety programs to core status among highway programs. In the past, safety programs were of a derivative nature, drawing their funding as a percentage of one of the core programs. This framework enabled some States to overlook safety and focus funding and efforts on other areas. With the new core designation, safety will take its proper place at center stage. The EPW Committee leadership deserves praise for taking this quantum leap forward.
Let me again thank Senators Inhofe, Jeffords, Bond, and Reid for making their staffs available this weekend for work on my amendments. I am pleased with the progress that has been made so far, trying to work on these amendments. One of my amendments has already been accepted. I thank them for that. That amendment has been integrated into the proposed managers' package.
I have another amendment relating to traffic signals that I believe we will have cleared in the near future.
I wish this afternoon to take a few minutes to share with the Members of the Senate what these amendments will do, because I believe they will help put us even further down the field in terms of saving lives and promoting greater emphasis on safety.
I have further additional safety-related amendments I will be offering to the Commerce Committee portion of the highway bill, and I will be offering those in a future speech when we get to that section of the bill, we hope later in the week. I thank Senator McCain for his leadership. I look forward to working with him and the Commerce Committee on that section of the bill.
The first amendment the EPW Committee has accepted contains two parts. First, it would require the States to identify and rank and disclose their most dangerous intersections. That might not sound like a revolutionary thing to do, but not every State is doing that now. It is the right thing to do: to rank them, to identify them, and then to make that information public so the consumers, the citizens will know what that information is and will then be able to act upon it.
A second part of our amendment we are still negotiating with the leadership would increase the timely and efficient expenditure of Federal safety dollars by the States.
Let me first talk about the dangerous roads and intersections amendment. The Environment and Public Works Committee bill focuses some resources on these problem areas and this amendment builds on the committee's fine efforts. Most States, fortunately, do take steps to identify and track the dangerous roads and intersections. They keep a list of the bad ones, the ones with high fatalities and high accident rates. But, amazingly, there are many States that keep this information secret and do not tell the public or, in some cases, do not even keep this information at all.
My amendment is very simple. It requires States to systematically rank and disclose their most dangerous roads and intersections. It requires them to do so in terms of dangers to human beings, in other words, in terms of the number of deaths and the number of injuries that occur on these specific roads.
Further, my language asks the States to disclose at least the top 5 percent of the most dangerous roads and intersections in their States, and that they identify to the Secretary of Transportation this information and therefore ultimately to the driving public.
We need to get information on dangerous roads and intersections out to the public and to the people we are charged to protect. My amendment would help assure that this in fact happens.
Consumers have a right to know this information. As a parent, I might tell my 16-year-old or 17-year-old not to go a certain way to a movie. Don't go on that dangerous intersection. Don't go by that dangerous curve. At least, if I had that information, I could make an intelligent decision about it. It is wrong for a State department of transportation to have that information and to deny me, as a citizen of that State, that same information. I should be able to tell my child, ``Don't go that way. It may take another 10 or 15 minutes, but go a different way--be safe.''
I would like to briefly tell my colleagues about a woman by the name of Sandy Johnson and her mother Jacqueline. On October 5, 2002, Sandy and Jacqueline were killed. They were killed in a car crash at a dangerous intersection near Columbus, OH.
What they did not know as they drove into that intersection--and what countless other area residents who used the roads that cross through it did not know at the time--was this particular intersection was known at that time by the State department of transportation to be a very dangerous area. In fact, the State department of transportation had indeed known that information for quite some time. Perhaps if Sandy Johnson had known that she would have taken a different route that day. We will never know. Perhaps she might have slowed down to see traffic coming from the other direction. Tragically, we simply will never know.
This particular intersection was dangerous because of the close proximity of a house to the intersection, making it difficult for drivers coming from each direction to see those approaching from the other way. The fix to this problem, the installation of four-way stop signs and ultimately removal of a house to improve sight lines, took quite some time to be implemented. But eventually, these steps were in fact taken.
Following the tragic death of his wife and his mother-in-law, Dean Johnson initiated a campaign to tackle the issue of dangerous roads and dangerous intersections, not just in Ohio but across the country. He has tried with varying results from State to State to get information on dangerous roads and intersection locations out to the public so tragedies like the one involving his wife could be prevented.
Today on the Senate floor, I thank Dean Johnson for his dedication to this very important public safety issue and for the progress he has made in my home State of Ohio and elsewhere in terms of getting critical lifesaving information out to citizens through the Sandy Johnson Foundation. I must say to him that his work is a real tribute to his love for his wife and for her memory.
Clearly, tragedies like the one involving Sandy Johnson can be prevented in many cases through means as simple and as inexpensive as disclosure to the public of what State departments of transportation already know--the disclosure of where the dangerous roads and intersections are located. The States should provide this information. They already know it. They simply should provide it.
The second part of our amendment focuses on how States spend their safety money. In this respect, my staff is working with the committee to develop additional mechanisms for the timely and efficient expenditure of Federal safety dollars. In the past, there have been problems with getting States to spend their safety money on safety. The EPW Committee bill goes a long way towards helping ensure those safety dollars do in fact get spent on safety. My efforts in this area are aimed at further strengthening this portion of the bill. It is simply so very important that these dollars be spent on safety--to straighten the road that is killing people or to change a dangerous intersection. This money can be very well spent and should be spent on things that will save lives. It is very cost effective.
Let me talk about another amendment. My staff and I are continuing to work with the managers and their staff on accepting the second amendment that has to do with keeping our intersections safe with regard to the safety of first responders as they engage in their daily work. This amendment is derived from legislation I introduced last year called the Safe Intersections Act of 2003, S. 1825.
This amendment would prohibit the unauthorized sale or possession of traffic signal preempting devices, commonly known as MIRTs. This type of device is a remote control for changing traffic signals. Members of the Senate may have read about these. They have been used for years by ambulances, police cars, and firetrucks, allowing them to reach emergencies faster. As an ambulance approaches the intersection where the light is red, the driver engages a transmitter. That transmitter then sends a signal to a receiver on the traffic light which changes the light from red to green within a few seconds. It is a very useful tool when properly used in emergency situations by someone in an emergency vehicle.
In a 2002 survey, the U.S. Department of Transportation found that in the top 78 metropolitan areas, there are 24,683 traffic lights equipped with these sensors--in other words, equipped with sensors that can be triggered by emergency vehicles.
In my own home State of Ohio, there is a joint pilot project underway by the Washington Township Fire Department and the Dublin Police Department to install these devices. Other areas in Ohio where they are in use include Mentor, Twinsburg, Willoughy, and Westerville. In Ohio and across the country, law enforcement offices, fire departments, and paramedics are investing in this technology to make their communities safer.
So what is the problem? Recently, it has come to light that this technology is being sold to unauthorized individuals--who use this technology in their own private cars and private vehicles to bypass red lights during their commute to and from work or just in their everyday driving. Clearly, preemptive devices were never intended for this type of use. This technology in the hands of unauthorized users could result in traffic problems such as gridlock or, much worse, accidents in which people are injured or killed. We know of at least one incident in Modesto, CA, where paramedics on an emergency run used a preemptive device to clear the way through a busy intersection only to see the light change back to red in their direction due to use of a MIRT by a nearby driver.
My amendment is simple. It would restrict the sale of preemptive devices to government-authorized users such as ambulance drivers, firetruck drivers, and police. Clearly, these devices should not be available to casual drivers wishing to make a total end run on civil order by changing traffic signals to make their commute a little bit shorter. It is a very simple amendment.
The two amendments I am offering will go a long way towards improving transportation safety. They are commonsense, they are practical, and they will in fact make a difference.
These efforts are a continuation of my work in this area--something I have been interested in for many years,
going back to a time in the early 1980s when I was in the Ohio State Senate. A little boy named Justin--I think Justin was 7--was killed right outside his school in my home county of Greene County. We decided at that time that Justin had been killed by a driver who had been drinking, a driver who had a very bad previous record of drinking and driving. We decided, frankly, we had had enough of this and we had to do something about it. I introduced a very tough drunk driving billing in Ohio. I researched the law and saw what other States and foreign countries had been doing. Ultimately, the bill became Ohio's tough drunk-driving law. I have been interested in highway safety issues ever since. I have worked in the Congress with many of my colleagues. I have worked in the State Senate. I saw this firsthand when I was county prosecutor. I used to go into county courts and prosecute drunk drivers. I saw the carnage and horrible tragedy drunk drivers cause. I have been interested in highway safety issues for many years. I know many of my colleagues are as well.
I again thank Senator Inhofe for his great work in this area to make this a very strong highway safety bill. It has some very strong highway safety components.
I think the amendments I have talked about today will go a long way to help make this an even better bill in regard to highway safety. I will be back on the floor later this week as the bill continues to progress with some additional amendments in regard to highway safety. I will be talking more about them.
I thank my colleague for his great work on this bill, and Senator Jeffords, as well, for his great work.
I yield the floor.
Madam President, I appreciate the comments of the Senator from Ohio and his interest in safety issues. I share his concerns. When you have lost a loved one in an automobile accident--in the case of…
Madam President, I appreciate the comments of the Senator from Ohio and his interest in safety issues. I share his concerns. When you have lost a loved one in an automobile accident--in the case of my father, because of a narrow, two-lane road--and you know that such a tragic accident could have been avoided and lives saved through things such as safety striping, laws, or additional safety devices at railroad crossings, you can fully appreciate the need for the attention the Senator has given to this important issue.
I also thank Senator Inhofe from Oklahoma, chairman of the Environment and Public Works Committee, for his leadership. Producing a highway bill is not an easy process. I have dealt with transportation issues closely as a Member of the Senate for several years now. I can remember when TEA-21 was on the floor how difficult it was to pull together the bill with the divergent committees--the Finance Committee, the Appropriations Committee, the Budget Committee, and the Banking Committee all had a say in the outcome of the bill. All the Members of the Senate had their oars in the water and we had to have bipartisan meetings in the various committees to produce a bill that could get through the process and be signed into law.
It is not easy to get the reauthorization bill to this point. I commend Senator Inhofe for the work he has already done on SAFETEA, the Safe, Accountable, Flexible, and Efficient Transportation Equity Act of 2003. Coming up with that good title alone deserves commendation.
I also thank the Senator from Vermont for his efforts. As a member of the Finance Committee, as well as the Environment and Public Works Committee, he has worked with Senator Inhofe to try to get this bill done. He has made it a point in the Finance Committee that we need to complete action on this legislation because it is important for our country.
We do need to come up with an acceptable financing plan for the costs of this bill. It will take cooperation and teamwork to get it done. I know Members of the Democratic leadership support this legislation and I believe we are getting off on the right foot. But we spent a week positioning and making speeches. I hope now the Senate will begin to have some votes and conclude action on the bill as soon as possible so that we are not faced with another extension. We need to move this legislation through the Senate, show leadership, and be prepared to go to conference with the House of Representatives.
In my opinion, there may not be a more important bill we can pass this year. This is not going to be a prolific year in terms of monumental legislation. Frankly, that is not all bad. Some of what we passed last year we should have left unpassed. Sometimes we should get credit for what we do not do. But this bill is one we need to complete this year for a variety of reasons.
First of all, SAFETEA is about jobs. Very few bills we pass in the Senate actually produce something. This is a bill that is actually going to produce jobs, not just next year but year after year. There are projects in North Carolina, Oklahoma, Vermont, Mississippi, and all over this Nation, ready to go right now. We need to get this legislation passed as soon as possible so that the funding it provides can be fully utilized during the construction season. If we wait too long and let this drag out, if we get stuck in the Senate or get stuck in conference, we will lose another construction season.
This bill will create jobs. Not all of the jobs will be high-paying, but they will be jobs just the same. There are very few Federal programs that create more jobs, from engineers down to the guy shoveling the gravel or moving around the dirt, all of which are very important.
We need to pass this legislation for its job creation impetus. We talk about how we need more jobs in this recovery; this is one way to get them.
SAFETEA is also about infrastructure. When you get through, you have something you can see--an interstate highway, a bridge, a safety device. Maybe even mass transit facilities in some of the larger cities. But we have a product we can look at.
I found out through my 31 years in Congress, there are few things we do for our constituents that are more important than highways and infrastructure. If you do not have roads, if people cannot get there, they will not come. That is a brilliant statement when you think about it, but if companies do not have access to good roads and bridges, railroads, airports, ports and harbors, they will not locate a plant and create jobs anywhere in this country. When you are dealing with a major international corporation, they want to know: Are we going to be on an interstate highway? Are we going to be close to an international airport? Do you have good schools? It starts there. Then you work from there to questions such as: Is the geology good? Will we have water and sewer systems? Do we have access roads or existing buildings?
My poor State of Mississippi has been making some progress. Why is that? Because we finally figured out that we were trying to fix everything and we were actually fixing nothing. We were shooting shotgun blasts and trying to do good things up and down the economic spectrum to help our State. It was not working because the money was disappearing. People were not getting better off. So we decided to focus. And we focused on education, particularly higher education and community colleges, to create workforce training programs for local communities. And we worked to improve our elementary and secondary education systems, as well.
Second was highways. Highways is a code word for infrastructure. It is the whole package: The industrial site, water, sewer, railroad spur. If a community does not have good highways, economic development will not happen. We have a major industry right now in my State, Viking Range Corporation, that makes the best ranges and some of the best kitchen equipment in the world. But to get to their manufacturing plant, visitors actually have to travel on a dirt road. This is severely hampering the company's growth.
The third thing we focused on in my State is economic development. We decided to aggressively go out and pursue jobs. This bill is an important component of that effort. SAFETEA is about jobs, it is about infrastructure, it is about quality of life, and it is about safety.
I don't want to demean this title. We talk about safety on the highways, safety on the roads, safety on our bridges. We have bridges all over America crumbling and being shut down. I admit, some of them are local or county bridges, which, in an ideal world, should be maintained by the counties. But at a minimum, shouldn't we continue the policies that started way
back in the 1950s--actually back in the 1800s, with Henry Clay, to develop and federally maintain an Interstate Highway System.
I urge my colleagues to support this legislation and to give the leaders of this committee the support to which they are entitled. Someone asked last week: We have all these problems, what do we do? I said, support the chairman and ranking member. They have a tough job, an important job. We should help and support them and try to shape the legislation with them, not just because we want projects in our State. Yes, we all do. But if we did not get one earmarked project in our States, we ought to support this legislation because of what it means for our country.
Now, there is a lot of pontification developing, as often happens with the highway bill, but even more so this time. People are showing up, all of a sudden, worried about the costs of this bill. Lots of people are saying: Wait a minute, this may add to the deficit. Where have they been over the last 2 or 3 years? Where were they on the prescription drug bill when we were developing a bill that would cost $600 billion or $800 billion or who knows how many billions of dollars? They were not worried about the deficit until the highway bill came up. And they said, wait a minute, the highway bill may cost too much.
The Finance Committee has struggled with how to pay for this bill. Is it perfect? No. But it was a major effort and we are within a close enough range where we can continue to make some adjustments as we go through the legislative process. Some people say: Once it goes through the process, we may have to vote. That is exactly right. And we will have to look at the final product. Is it something the Republicans, Democrats, Senate, House, labor unions, the White House can live with? We will never know until we move forward on it.
So we have people now saying that after ignoring the amount of spending last year--in bill after bill after bill--we are going to plant our flag on this hill, and we are going to fight excessive spending on the highway bill. They picked the wrong bill. This is a positive bill, and we will make it work as the process goes forward.
People will say: Well, wait a minute. There may be some earmarking in some of these bills before it is over. Yes, there may be. Fine. And I am going to fight for my own State to get its share because I do not necessarily believe that all wisdom reposes in the Department of Transportation in Washington, DC. I happen to know a little bit about some of the real crises, projects, and problems in my own State, and I trust Senators--men and women--from their own States to identify some of the needs that must be addressed in their home states.
Then there will be those who will say: This bill doesn't put enough funding into mass transportation or it doesn't put enough funding into one project or another. Let me point out a couple of things we are dealing with.
Our Interstate Highway System is nearly 50 years old. Thirty-two percent of our major roads are in poor or mediocre condition. Twenty- nine percent of our Nation's bridges are structurally deficient or functionally obsolete. If we do not complete action on this legislation, we will wind up with a 1-year extension and we will be back next year. Some people would say, maybe we could do a better job in a nonelection year.
But I believe we need a carefully thought out, multiyear, multifaceted federal highway and transportation program, and we need it now. We are having difficulty on other bills, such as the energy bill. We are trying to decide, what bills can we get done this year? Well, there is one thing we should not leave undone this year, and it is this highway bill.
I urge my colleagues to work together to try to come to a conclusion this week. If we have to have a cloture motion filed in order to make progress, let's do that. I believe it will pass with a bipartisan vote. It should. And then we can make progress on this bill and be ready to go to conference with the House of Representatives where we can get the job done.
I know we are going to be getting calls with suggestions of delays. Some people do not like the formula. It is tough to come up with a formula that is fair to everybody, especially if you have been a big donee State. If you are a small State or a big State that has been getting back $1.21 for every $1 you pay into the highway trust fund, you don't want to lose any funding. But if you are from a poor State that has been getting only 50 or 75 cents on the dollar that your constituents pay into the Highway Trust Fund, you want a fairer deal. But it is not easy to try to come up with a formula that is fair to Texas and New York and Rhode Island and Oklahoma all at the same time. It is really a balancing act.
I looked at the formula. I don't think the formula is as good as it ought to be for Mississippi. We are just kind of in the middle. And when your state has been neglected for 138 years it needs to do a little better than being in the middle. But I prefer the progress we make on this bill, to nothing. It is progress. So I do not think I have any more room to complain than anybody else.
But, again, we have some people who do not want to move toward a fairer formula for everyone. They do not want to give up anything they have. But I think the formula Chairman Inhofe and Senator Jeffords have come up with is good enough. Can they still tweak it a little bit as the bill moves forward through the process? Yes, they can; and I am sure they will.
So I hope my colleagues will not start blocking this bill with procedural motions because they do not like the formula. I hope they will keep working with the chairman and ranking member, as I will. I am going to curry favor with the chairman of the committee until the last dog dies to try to complete action on this bill in a way that will be fair to my constituents and good for the country. But I hope my colleagues will not use the formula as an excuse to block the bill. I hope they will not use this newfound fiscal responsibility to hammer out the worst possible bill. If we will proceed together, working with the chairman and ranking member, we will complete action on this bill, and it will be one of the best things we can do this year.
I thank the Senate for the opportunity to comment on this bill. I thank the leadership for what they are doing. I was growing concerned that too many people were possibly trying to conjure up some way to block this legislation.
So let's keep the process moving. It is not just for the sake of the process, no. It is for better and safer infrastructure in this country. It is for jobs. I wish the leadership of the committee the best, and I am going to be here trying to help them every step of the way.
I yield the floor, Madam President.
Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent the order for the quorum call be rescinded. Mr. President, I have a couple of issues I will address as in morning business. I ask consent. Mr. President,…
Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent the order for the quorum call be rescinded.
Mr. President, I have a couple of issues I will address as in morning business. I ask consent.
Mr. President, yesterday the Bush administration called to end the short-term investigation into the recent mad cow scare. While many of us believe Secretary Veneman and her staff have done a good job on many fronts, the decision to suspend the investigation is extremely premature. Despite the high safety standards met by cattle producers, consumers still have questions about the safety of America's meat supply. By curtailing its investigation, the Bush administration has chosen not to do all it can to settle the questions raised by the discovery of a single Canadian-born cow infected with BSE.
In 2001, a herd of 81 cattle came into the United States from Canada. One of those animals turned out to have BSE. USDA, through its investigation, has managed to locate 28 of the remaining 80 Canadian- born animals. We are grateful for these efforts, but there is a lot more work to do. Twenty-eight is not 80.
Last year, USDA Chief Veterinarian Ron DeHaven said:
We feel confident that we are going to be able to determine
the whereabouts of most if not all of these animals within
the next several days.
Six weeks later, those early hopes have been disappointed. Consumers have a right to know why those other cattle were not found and what more, if anything, can be done.
If we assume the Canadian index herd were all fed the same bovine byproduct known to cause BSE, it is possible the other animals currently in the United States may also have the disease.
An international panel convened by USDA announced last week they believe some cattle in the U.S. may actually have BSE. While the likelihood an American consumer would come into contact with the meat from one of the infected cows is low, Government has the responsibility to do all it can to instill consumer confidence in the safety and quality of our food system and the food we feed our families.
That work has not been completed because the investigation has not been adequately ended. While the risk to human health may be remote, the Bush administration is doing a disservice to consumers by short- circuiting the good work USDA has done to locate the Canadian-born animals in question.
In the face of so many doubts and questions, it makes no sense to cut this investigation short. Some suggest pressure from the hugely concentrated meatpacking industry is responsible. A small handful of meatpackers controls 80 percent of the beef in the United States. In fact, this is such a significant problem that the Senate approved legislation as part of its last farm bill to address problematic concentration in the meatpacking industry. Unfortunately, that provision was stripped during the conference and was not included in the final farm bill.
Along with this growing concentration comes greater influence within the administration itself. I am not suggesting the packers did something unlawful, but the fact remains they wanted to end this investigation because it cast a cloud over their products. Evidently, these are the interests the Bush administration has chosen to advance above others.
Others have suggested the Bush administration took this step in its zeal for a single American trading continent--no borders with the Canadians or the Mexicans whatsoever. In fact, after the farm bill was passed, the Secretary suggested we should have a continent-of-origin label for certain agricultural products. If that had been pursued, we would never be able to differentiate between our highest quality products and those from Canada and Mexico. As it is, Americans today, still, do not have the option of knowing where our food comes from.
This is particularly important with regard to beef in light of the BSE scare. American consumers are simply asking for a label with basic information about the food they eat. In fact, 80 percent of Americans have said they would like to know where their meat comes from. That is why Senators on both sides of the aisle fought for and won approval of the country-of-origin labeling law. It is why many of us have charged those opposed to COOL with acting irresponsibly. In a backroom deal before the BSE scare, Republicans met in private and delayed the COOL law for 2 years.
The Senate has shown time and time again that we support this important consumer law and that we want to see it back in law, to ensure implementation this fall. In fact, the law still requires USDA to develop the regulations by this fall. So, when we change the date of implementation back to September of this year, there should be no delay whatsoever in USDA implementing it on time as the law originally required. But we should not even have to wait for that. USDA has the authority to immediately provide this information to consumers, to tell them where their food and, in particular, where their meat originated. If we have that, consumers can stay away from Canadian-born cattle, at least until the animals in question that have not been located in the United States are actually found.
But to date the administration will have none of it. They will not help inform U.S. consumers, even though our major export markets have requested we certify that our exports are born and raised and processed in our country. I don't understand why the administration will not provide U.S. consumers the information they want and our foreign trading partners the information they now demand.
The only answer that keeps coming back to many of us is while COOL is good for average Americans, it is inconvenient for the large meatpacking cartel since they would be required to affix a simple label to their products and track the meat from the stockyard to the store shelf. So, despite the support of 167 consumer groups representing over 50 million Americans,
the administration denies Americans this basic information.
USDA should reopen the investigation and try to locate all of the cattle from the Canadian index herd. They should also assist American consumers and American farmers and ranchers by immediately implementing a ``Product of the USA'' labeling program under emergency regulations. Instead of bowing to pressure and cutting short a valuable investigation, the administration should take a step back and rethink its priorities. The BSE scare is now hurting all of our ranchers, as over 40 countries have banned imports from the United States. The American livestock industry is being tarnished and ranchers are suffering because of one Canadian cow. The industry should not be further tarnished by inappropriate Government action. The administration should reopen the investigation, drop its opposition to labeling, and implement COOL immediately.
For the sake of America's farmers and ranchers, for consumer confidence in the safety of our food supply, the administration needs to do the right thing. Though it might upset a few special interests, the American people will overwhelmingly support such an action because it is in their interest. I, for one, will commend the President for his thoughtful reversal of this misplaced policy priority.
White House Says Exporting U.S. Jobs Is ``Good for the Economy''
Mr. President, the other issue I wanted to discuss briefly is a new position taken by the administration, reflected in this newspaper. The article appeared this morning in the Los Angeles Times. The headline reads, ``Bush Supports Shift of Jobs Overseas.''
I ask unanimous consent the article be printed in the Record.
When I saw the headline, I had to read it twice.
I actually could not believe what I was reading. Again the quote is from the headline, ``Bush Supports Shift of Jobs Overseas.''
Our economy has already lost 2.6 million jobs in the last 3 years. We have 9 million Americans who are unemployed. Long-term unemployment is at a 20-year high, and 80,000 workers are exhausting their unemployment benefits every week because our Republican colleagues refuse to extend temporary Federal unemployment benefits.
What does the White House say? The President's top economic advisers tell us not to worry. They say shipping American jobs to China, India, and other countries is actually good for the economy. Those comments are actually in this article. It is a direct quote, that these American jobs shipped abroad are good for the economy. They say exporting computer programming jobs and
other white-collar jobs is actually good for the economy.
The White House acknowledges some workers will be hurt. But then they say the ``benefits'' of exporting American jobs ``eventually will outweigh the costs as Americans are able to buy cheaper goods and services and new jobs are created in growing sectors of the economy.''
How are people without jobs supposed to buy all of these goods and services? How do you keep a consumer economy going when you export the jobs? What are they thinking?
The chairman of the President's Council of Economic Advisers, the office that wrote the report, says the ``government should try to salve the short-term disruption by helping displaced workers obtain the training they need to enter new fields, such as health care.'' That sounds like a cruel joke.
The President's proposed budget for next year cuts money for Federal job training.
You have on the one hand the President's council arguing we ought to train displaced workers but then have the budget presented to Congress as one which actually cuts the very training the administration is advocating.
How do people know what fields to train for? How do they know the jobs they are training for won't be the next jobs targeted to be shipped overseas with the encouragement of the White House?
Maybe exporting American jobs sounds like a good idea if you are sitting in some think tank, or behind a desk at the White House, or here on the Hill. But out in the real world, it is creating real hardship and anxiety.
I have seen what happens when plants ship their jobs overseas. It happened in my hometown 2 years ago. Midcom, Incorporated makes electronic transformers for high-tech companies. They used to employ 200 people in Aberdeen. One Tuesday morning in March of 2001, those workers showed up for work and were told their jobs were going to be gone in 3 months, many of them to Mexico and China.
I have met with many of those workers. A lot of them are women in their 40s and 50s, and their families depended on their incomes to make ends meet. They don't see how exporting their jobs was a good idea for the economy, and neither do most Americans.
The chairman of the President's Council of Economic Advisers is quoted as saying, ``Out-sourcing is just a new way of doing international trade.'' ``More things are tradable than were tradable in the past. ``
Not everything is tradable. The dignity that comes from earning an honest dollar and providing for your family is not tradable. The security that comes from knowing you can pay the bills and you are not going to lose your home is not tradable. The sense of patriotism and community that says we are all in this together is not a tradable commodity.
The White House report predicts a miraculous economic recovery this year. They say we could see the creation of 3.8 million jobs. The White House has said the economy will create millions of jobs every year now for the last 3 years. And they have been wrong. They are wrong now when they say exporting American jobs is good for the economy. The White House has lost more jobs on President Bush's watch than the last 11 administrations put together. They have cut job training in education. They are blocking Federal unemployment benefits. And now, incredibly, they are saying that exporting middle-class, white-collar jobs is good for the economy.
Instead of policies that reward companies for shifting jobs overseas, instead of letting companies open a post office box in some island nation and call it their corporate headquarters so they skip out on paying taxes, America needs a real plan to keep the good jobs we have here and create many more of them.
I yield the floor.
Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded. I ask unanimous consent to speak for 10 minutes as in morning business. Mr. President, I will discuss a subject…
Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.
I ask unanimous consent to speak for 10 minutes as in morning business.
Mr. President, I will discuss a subject other than what is before the Senate, but before I do that I am pleased we are moving forward with the highway bill. I am on both committees, the Environment and Public Works Committee, as well as the Finance Committee, and we have spent a great deal of time on this. Taking care of our infrastructure and seeking to provide more jobs in a short period of time is one of the most important issues we have. I certainly hope we can move forward and do so quickly.
Endangered Species Act
Today I will comment on an issue in which I have been very interested, and as a matter of fact, I have a bill pending regarding the Endangered Species Act. I suppose most everyone favors the idea of protecting endangered species. That is something we all like to do. However, it has been in place now for more than 20 years, and frankly it has a different impact in different parts of the country.
I come from a State where 50 percent of the State belongs to the Federal Government. We have a lot of conflicting issues, both with the Federal Government and with the State government. It becomes quite difficult from time to time. Like many programs that are in place, I wish, when we pass them, we would say it has to be reviewed again in another 8 or 9 years to see if it is working and make necessary changes. This program needs some changes. It has not worked the way we would like to have seen it work. We need to review programs after there has been time to try them out and see how they will work.
What has happened, to a large extent, the emphasis has been on listing, rather than the recovery aspect. As a matter of fact, we have listed nearly 1,500 various species, plant and animal. We have recovered about 12. So the idea and emphasis ought to be, it seems to me, on the recovery of these species and not simply on the listing of them and letting them go on forever being endangered and having to be managed in that way.
Part of the problem, of course, has been the idea that anytime somebody is making decisions or regulations with regard to natural resources--in this case, endangered species--they end up in court. Instead of doing it on the basis of science and what is the best decision to be made, we end up in court and then letting the court manage it. It becomes a very difficult situation.
I sympathize with those people who are involved in the management of these programs. In everything they do, they can think about what is good for the program--in this case, what is good for endangered species--but, wait a minute: We have to take a look over here to see how we are going to get by the court.
I might add as an appendix, one of the difficulties in our case is, we are in the Tenth Circuit Court, and when things happen in Wyoming or Yellowstone Park, or wherever, then they go to court in Washington. There ought to be some sort of limitation to where the issue can go. If the issue occurs in a particular circuit, that is where the judge ought to be, that is where the court case ought to take place. At any rate, that, again, is one of the problems.
One of the other problems for States such as ours, where we have lots of public lands--and we have some unique problems that follow along the Rocky Mountain Ridge; and there are 10 or 12 States that have a lot of things in common. And I understand if you are on the east coast or even on the west coast, you don't have much interest in what is happening in our area, but our issues are sometimes unique, so there needs to be a good deal of local input into these kinds of issues to make them workable because there are different kinds of circumstances that appear.
One of the listings we had some experience with recently is the so- called jumping mouse in part of the southern part of our State and part of Colorado. It turns out, after about 5 years, that they really did not have the scientific basis for listing these critters at all, and they were not even in the same family of mice that they thought they were. Now we are in the process of going away from that whole thing after this whole problem of people having to manage their lands differently. So obviously there needs to be something done differently.
One of the issues we are dealing with at the moment is grizzly bears. What you generally do with an endangered species listing is you try to figure out how many there are, and then you put forward some goals as to how many you would like to achieve in the recovery. We have passed the recovery numbers for almost 10 years in Yellowstone Park--and, of course, the grizzly bears do not stay in Yellowstone Park--but still we have not gotten them delisted. It just seems as if it takes forever to do this.
Actually, however, the current specie we are dealing with is the gray wolves. Wolves, of course, were there years ago; then they were not there for a while; and they came back in the 1990s. There was a reintroduction of wolves from Canada into Yellowstone Park. Again, nobody would have guessed they were going to stay in Yellowstone Park, and surely they did not.
So now we are in a circumstance where the wolves have moved into Idaho, Montana, and Wyoming, as well as the park, and there finally has come a time when they have exceeded the numbers substantially to where there is a plan in effect, and hopefully moving into effect, where the three States would set up their own management plan, and then the wolves would be delisted and managed by the States, with certain agreements in there.
What we have now is Wyoming has put together a plan--as have Idaho and Montana--and they have been really very tough to deal with. I think last year we had 47 cattle that were proven to be killed by the wolves and at least that many that were suspected to have been killed by the wolves. But the Fish and Wildlife Service does not agree with the plan Wyoming has, so now we are waiting to see if we can get some agreement on that. As a matter of fact, part of the plan was passed by the Wyoming Legislature, but it does not seem to be acceptable. We have met with the Secretary and with the head of the Fish and Wildlife Service to see if we can find some flexibility there, and it is mostly over the semantics of what is in the plan. But the fact is, we do need to get them delisted so the State can have control over their management. That is really where we are.
I guess my point is, we have a program that all of us would like to maintain. We like the idea, but it is not working very well, and yet it seems to be very difficult to do anything about it. Sometimes it seems to me when we pass a bill, we ought to say it ends in 5 years and has to be renewed so that we can take another look at it at that time. First of all, times change; secondly, sometimes it is not managed properly and it could be changed. Anyway, we have not done that.
I have a bill introduced--introduced for several years, as a matter of fact which we have not been able to move. Oversimplified, it simply says when you list a critter or a species, you have to have scientific information. You have to have a real basis for doing it, and the people who list it have to provide some scientific data so that a jumping mouse is really a jumping mouse. And the second part is that at the time of listing, there also has to be a plan for recovery. That really has become the problem.
It is easy to list. People can send in recommendations for listing, and suddenly it happens, but there is no real plan as to how the recovery is going to take place, there is no area that it is designed to cover, and those kinds of things, and it becomes really very difficult to get this done.
I am going to push once again to get this done. Senator Craig and Senator Hagel are cosponsors of the bill. We are going to try again to see if we can get this done. This is designed not to do away with the Endangered Species Act but indeed to strengthen the program so that it will work in more places than it does now. So that is an issue in which I am very much involved.
In closing, we have a lot to do this year. It seems a little frustrating sometimes that we have difficulty in moving forward. I wish we could really take a look at where we are, to try to
set some priorities as to the kinds of issues with which we want to move forward.
We end up with endless debate, which really keeps anything from happening. We end up with unrelated amendments being put on bills that keep us from moving forward. I think everyone here would say: Hey, our job is to accomplish some objectives. I understand there are different views, and that is why we vote. But the idea of just simply resisting moving forward, the idea of resisting going to conference, for example, certainly is not a good way to manage here in the Chamber.
Of course, politics in this place is not a brand new idea, but we have gotten so that everything we talk about is related to the 2004 Presidential election. Well, that is not really why we are here. We have different views. We ought to reconcile those views or at least decide what the majority seeks to do here and do that.
Also, I think most of us generally have the notion that we ought to try to make the Federal Government smaller rather than having it growing. Yet that does not seem to be what we do. We resist talking about competitive outsourcing, doing any of these kinds of things. We need to have some rules related to our spending so we are limited in what we do. We are facing a deficit now that none of us like. I think it is justifiable because of all the emergency things we have been in, but now is the time to do something about that.
We need to do something about adding issues to bills when they go to conference committee that have not been passed by either House. This is not the way things ought to be done.
So I hope--and I know our leadership is working on this--we can see if we can move forward some more on the priorities of things we ought to be doing and ought to have done. We are in the midst of one now that everyone agrees we need to do. We need to move forward and do the things that are before us that we all want to do, and that is to make this a stronger country, and not have an overbearing Federal Government but have an equal division of responsibility in determining what the role of the Federal Government is as opposed to local and State governments.
So, Mr. President, thank you very much for the opportunity to speak as in morning business.
I suggest the absence of a quorum.
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Mr. President, last week, the Bush administration--in what has become its normal pattern--ignored the pleas of thousands of hardworking Americans. It lifted the steel tariffs it had promised the U.S.…
Mr. President, last week, the Bush administration--in what has become its normal pattern--ignored the pleas of thousands of hardworking Americans. It lifted the steel tariffs it had promised the U.S. steel industry and imposed on foreign imports back in March of 2002.
Despite its earlier pledge to stand by America's steelworkers, the White House, in typical fashion, decided to turn its back on our highest valued workers and most vulnerable retirees. In a fit of pique and hard-hearted hubris, the White House decided to lift U.S. tariffs on foreign steel imports 15
months ahead of time, instead of letting the tariffs stay in place until March 2005, as is permitted by U.S. law.
Why? Why would the White House betray America's steel industry--the backbone of America's industrial base--particularly during this time of war? Of national emergency? No. Because the President feared retaliation from America's trading partners, he quivered at the threat that they would retaliate against U.S. exports if he did not lift the 201 tariffs. He cowered in the face of exactly those nations whose steel exports to the United States have driven 42 U.S. steel companies to their knees and into bankruptcy. His resolve collapsed in the face of retaliatory threats from America's most virulent competitors, whose illegal trade against the United States has already cost nearly 50,000 steelworkers their jobs.
America's foreign trade opponents gambled that this President lacked the resolve to stand up to them and to the WTO. Do you know? They were right. They were sadly correct.
But this President, George W. Bush, did not need to cave like a ``weak willy'' in the face of belligerent foreign bullies. Instead, he could have invoked Article XXI of the GATT, a viable trade tool that has been legitimately and successfully employed by the United States in the past to exempt itself from the GATT, now the WTO, in a time of war or national emergency. The President on July 31, 2003, formally proclaimed our Nation to be in a continued state of emergency. As a result of the President's own misguided and ill-advised actions, we remain engaged militarily in Iraq.
On July 31, 2003, President Bush formally declared that, in accordance with section 202(d) of the National Emergencies Act, he was ``continuing for one year the national emergency with respect to Iraq.'' We also continue to face an ongoing war against terrorism, both here at home and abroad.
So, President Bush had--and has--ample authority to invoke a provision of GATT 1994, negotiated by the United States and available to all WTO Members, that would permit him to exempt protections for the U.S. steel industry from retaliation by foreign countries.
But this President has so far lacked the foresight or the fortitude to take that step. Confronted with real threats of economic retaliation by determined competitors, the President folds like a house of cards astride the San Andreas fault.
That is why, today, I am introducing a bill that will do what the President refused to do. It will reinstate the 201 relief and reimpose the 201 tariffs against foreign steel imports. Under my bill, the 201 tariffs will be put back in place to stop foreign import surges, just as they did before the President so ill-advisedly lifted the tariffs last Thursday. And the tariffs will remain in place through March 5, 2005.
This administration should not have been bullied into abandoning the U.S. steel industry. Our steel industry is key to the national economic security of our Nation. Without steel, we cannot guarantee America's national security. Without steel, we could not have rebuilt after September 11. And I am not the only one who thinks that steel is integral to America's economic and national security. Just a few days before that fateful September day, on August 26, 2001, President Bush told America's steelworkers: ``If you're worried about the security of the country and you become over reliant upon foreign sources of steel, it can easily affect the capacity of our military to be well supplied. Steel is an important jobs issue; it is also an important national security issue.''
With an annual take deficit of almost $500 billion, Americans have a right to expect that international trade rules with work for them; not against them. They also have a right to know that the United States can respond as it must to the type of trade crises that have been suffered by America's steel industry for years.
There was absolutely no reason to lift the steel 201 tariffs. They are fully consistent with both U.S. law and our international agreements--regardless of the view of the WTO. The purpose of 201 relief is to give the domestic industry time to adjust to import competition. Our valiant steel industry is doing just that by pursuing unprecedented restructuring and new investment. Since the 201 tariffs were imposed, flat-rolled steel producers alone have invested more than $3 billion to enhance their productivity.
Critics of the 201 relief have been proved wrong on every significant fact concerning that relief. They said that once the tariffs were imposed, steel prices would go through the roof. Yet, prices have risen only modestly, and much less than abroad. The critics claimed that U.S. steel companies would do nothing to improve their competitiveness. But our Nation is witnessing the most dramatic restructuring in the industry's history. The critics also claimed that the tariffs would be bad for the U.S. economy, but the non-partisan U.S. International Trade Commission, ITC, recently found that the potential costs are minuscule--only about 2 percent of what Americans spend each month at McDonald's--and not even a drop in the bucket compared to the value we gain by restoring a critical U.S. industry to long-term competitiveness.
Other nations' actions in this Section 201 dispute have been truly disgraceful. The European Union originally threatened to retaliate against the United States immediately upon the President's application of the safeguard measures in March 2002. In the end, it hesitated. But its threat was sufficient to extort from the administration nearly unlimited exclusions from the tariffs to benefit foreign producers.
Acquiescing to this type of bullying jeopardizes the future of the U.S. steel industry, and it undermines the integrity of, and support for, the entire international trading system. Americans cannot be expected to support a system that works against them, rather than for them.
By lifting the tariffs, the administration is allowing Brazil, the European Union, Japan, and other nations, once again, to flood the U.S. market with imports. The Bush administration could have stood up for America's steelworkers like those at Weirton, WV, and Wheeling- Pittsburgh Steel in West Virginia, and demanded that other countries respect the legitimate rights of the United States in the world trading system. But this administration chose to back down, to lose face, to sit back and watch, once more, while thousands of additional U.S. steel jobs are destroyed by wave after wave of foreign imports.
The administration does not seem to care if the U.S. steel industry is destroyed at a time of war and in the midst of a national emergency. President Bush did not even care enough to personally inform the U.S. steel industry, its workers, and their families of his decision to lift the tariffs. No!! Instead, he sent a trade negotiator, Mr. Zoellick, to do his dirty work. Ambassador Zoellick had the audacity to tell us that the tariffs are ``no longer necessary.'' No longer necessary. And why did he say that they are no longer necessary? They are no longer necessary because, he said, ``these safeguard measures have achieved their purpose.''
The only purpose that I can see in this decision to shut the tariff program down is to succumb to threats and demands from abroad. The only effect will be the loss of more steel manufacturing jobs here at home.
On October 27, 2000, Mr. Dick Cheney--do you know him? He is now Vice President of the United States--just a few days before the elections he came to Weirton, WV, to campaign for the Bush-Cheney ticket. During that visit, Mr. Cheney forcefully pledged to help America's steelworkers. He said, ``We will never lie to you. If our trading partners violate our trading laws, we will respond swiftly and firmly.''
Promise made, promise broken. Unfortunately, like so many commitments this administration has made, its pledge to help America's steel industry got off to a headline-grabbing start, but has now been discarded, out of the glare of the campaign spotlight.
So now, only 3 years after Mr. Cheney's campaign-season vow of honesty to America's steelworkers, this White House has taken an axe to the 201 tariffs and betrayed the trust of thousands of American families whose paychecks depend on the U.S. steel industry.
Mr. President, the Bush White House has absolutely failed the working families across this country. This White House has traded the best interests of the American people for the big special interests of corporate campaign contributors. It is no surprise that the Bush Administration would turn its back on steelworkers.
When the Bush-Cheney ticket needed West Virginia's votes in 2000, it pledged to help our steel industry. At first, it appeared as though the administration would follow through on that promise. The White House applied the steel tariffs, for which West Virginia was thankful and for which I and other Senators congratulated, commended and thanked the administration. But then the President exempted import after import from those tariffs. Now the President has eliminated the tariffs completely.
The Bush White House may have forgotten the promise made to the steel industry in West Virginia, but thousands of West Virginians and other steelworkers across the Nation will not forget. The recognize a fair- weather friend when they seen one.
Mr. President, the Bureau of Transportation Statistics tells us that almost 5 million motorcycles are registered to operate on America's roadways, covering almost 17 million miles per year. Many more…
Mr. President, the Bureau of Transportation Statistics tells us that almost 5 million motorcycles are registered to operate on America's roadways, covering almost 17 million miles per year. Many more are used off-road, and some estimates put the actual number of riders at up to 20 million.
All these Americans choose to ride motorcycles either for recreation or for their primary means of transportation, and every year the number of Americans on motorcycles increases. As that number increases, so does the number of accidents, including fata accidents. Yet we are falling tragically behind in training these individuals to ride safely.
The single best way to avoid injuries, fatalities, high insurance costs, lawsuits, medical costs and all the other factors that come into play is by avoiding the accidents in the first place.
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, in its Motorcycle Safety Program issued in January 2003, said: ``Crash prevention . . . offers the greatest potential safety benefit for motorcyclists.''
And the single best way to avoid accidents is to provide safety training.
Training works.
Untrained riders have accidents, and trained riders do not. It is really as simple as that.
A study of the California Motorcyclist Safety Program designed by Dr. John Billheimer and completed in 1996 found that rider training dramatically reduces accidents, and thus eliminates injuries and fatalities. Specifically, the study stated, ``Analyses of statewide accident trends show that total motorcycle accidents have dropped 67 percent since the introduction of the California Motorcyclist Safety Program, with a drop of 88 percent among the under-18 riders. . . . If accident trends in California had paralleled those in the rest of the U.S. over this period, the State would have experienced an additional 124 fatalities per year. By any measure, the California Motorcyclist Safety Program is a cost-effective program that pays for itself many times over in saved lives and reduced accident rates.''
Even more recent statistics from the Commonwealth of Virginia are equally telling. Virginia has approximately 110,000 registered motorcycle. Since 1998, there have been 7,099 motorcycle crashes in Virginia and 222 of those crashes have been fatal. Yet out of all those accidents, the number involving riders with formal training is less than 4 percent of the total, and the number
of fatal accidents involving trained riders is just 1.8 percent. The vast majority of all accidents--over 96 percent--are riders without training.
The most far-reaching document yet completed on motorcyclist safety is the ``National Agenda for Motorcycle Safety,'' a cooperative effort by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, the Motorcycle Safety Foundation, the National Association of State Motorcycle Safety Administrators, and a host of others representing the insurance industry, law enforcement, riders, traffic safety experts and others.
The National Agenda identified a number of steps needed to reduce the tragic rate of motorcycle accidents. Uppermost among them is the need for better training.
Where does motorcyclist training come from? Who does it? How is it funded?
The truth is, training, and funding for training, is a mixed bag. And that, is exactly the problem. Most States provide at least moral support, but there is no uniform process for ensuring that training is provided, or that the facilities and funding is made available.
In most cases, training is funded almost entirely by the students themselves, who pay up to $300 per person for the privilege. Many States also collect money--often a nominal charge of $5.00 for a motorcycle operator's license. Both these efforts to raise funds are strongly supported by and promoted by the motorcycling community--but they want to ensure that the funds are actually used for things that enhance motorcyclist safety.
As for the curriculum itself, far and away the most frequent choice is the material created by the Motorcycle Safety Foundation (MSF), a group supported by the major motorcycle manufacturers.
The MSF course material for beginning motorcyclists is extremely comprehensive. It focuses on teaching the skills and knowledge needed for safe riding--beginning with the use of proper equipment such as gloves, boots and helmets, goes on to teach students how to predict and avoid hazardous situations, and graduates to teaching the physical skills needed for crash avoidance. This is precisely the course material that has produced such outstanding results in California, Virginia and many other States.
You may well ask, ``If training is so successful, why do we still have so many accidents? The answer is as simple as can be: training availability lags far behind the demand.
Throughout the country, the waiting list to join a training class ranges from several weeks to several months.
In California, which has one of the oldest and strongest programs, it may take as long as 3 months.
In Wisconsin, one of the States where training dollars were totally eliminated, motorcyclist groups have stepped up to the plate to self- fund training, but the waiting list may be as large as 7,000 people.
Illinois trained 8,500 people in 2000, but had to turn away nearly 3,000 more for lack of space. Course capacity increased in 2001 and 2002, but the number of people turned away increased faster. In 2003, almost 11,000 students completed training, but almost 4,000 were told ``Sorry, there's no room for you.''
And that's the story in State after State.
Unfortunately, what that means is that untrained riders are increasing in number all the time. If you can pass your State's test, you can ride. And if you just spent thousands of dollars on a new motorcycle, the chances are you won't be letting that new motorcycle license go to waste. But a licensed rider isn't necessarily a trained rider, nor is he or she necessarily a safe rider. It takes training--or years of experience--to make a safe rider. The statistics from California and Virginia confirm that for all to see.
At the appropriate time, it is my intention to seek action to encourage the State to provide more and better support for these vital training efforts.
Now, let me turn to another concern of the motorcycling community. A large part of the training needed to produce safe riders consists of teaching them how to avoid road hazards that simply should not exist in the first place. In many cases, highway engineering practices focus on four wheels, not two.
The average driver cruises past such things as bridge expansion joints, loose manhole covers, the slick sealants used to fill cracks in asphalt pavement, rough asphalt patches, rumble strips and lane- dividing buttons that keep drivers awake, and the steel or steel cable barriers along the side of the road. Yet any or all of these things may be hazardous to a rider.
The motorcycling community has long sought ways to let engineers and designers know about those hazards, and work with them to design better systems. I have seriously contemplated offering an amendment that would address this issue, but I am happy to report that such an amendment may not be needed.
That concludes my statement for the movement, but at this time I would like to engage in a colloquy with the chairman of the Environment and Public Works Committee on this matter.
I have been working in several areas to address the issue of motorcyclist safety. As part of this effort, I have been working to establish an Advisory Council to assist the Secretary of Transportation in developing the appropriate safety specifications for highways and motorcycles. Fatalities among motorcyclists have gone up dramatically, rising from 2,112 in 1997 to 3,244 in 2002. Because motorcyclists have special needs and concerns, I have long been concerned that the Department of Transportation has not had adequate input from either riders or experts outside the Department itself. Thus, I proposed establishing a council of riders and experts to advise the Secretary on their unique safety needs.
Chairman Inhofe has been very helpful in trying to find the most appropriate way to get this accomplished. He suggested and I agreed to work with the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials--AASHTO, which is the organization that actually develops guidelines for highway safety engineering.
I recently received from AASHTO a letter describing a task force it has developed to identify strategies that can be used to reduce motorcycle fatalities and injuries. I believe this task force may be able to accomplish my goal of elevating the unique safety needs of motorcyclists to greater attention by including both riders and outside experts in its deliberations. As a result, I have decided not to offer an amendment to establish an advisory council at this time.
I believe that Chairman Inhofe has had an opportunity to look over the AASHTO letter and I am wondering if he agrees with me that this will accomplish what we have been working towards.
I thank the Chairman for his assistance and will add him as an original cosponsor when that amendment is offered.
Mr. President, today, along with Senator Bob Graham I am introducing the ``Defense of Medicare and Real Prescription Drug Benefit Act.'' Congressman John Dingell is introducing companion legislation…
Mr. President, today, along with Senator Bob Graham I am introducing the ``Defense of Medicare and Real Prescription Drug Benefit Act.'' Congressman John Dingell is introducing companion legislation in the House of Representatives.
The more senior citizens learn about the legislation President Bush has just signed, the more concerned they are. It's a sweetheart deal for big insurance companies and pharmaceutical companies and a raw deal for senior citizens. It's not really a prescription drug bill. It's an anti-Medicare bill.
Our legislation will reverse these destructive policies. Our legislation will protect and preserve Medicare--not turn senior citizens over to the un-tender mercies of HMOs and insurance companies. It will provide prescription drug benefit for senior citizens, without coverage gaps or hidden loopholes. It will protect senior citizens with good retirement coverage from a former employer, and it will protect the poorest of the poor on Medicaid. It will reduce prescription drug costs, by allowing safe importation of drugs from Canada and government negotiations with drug companies for discounts. And it will repeal the program of Health Savings Accounts that help the healthy, wealthy and insurance companies who have contributed heavily to the Republican Party, while harming every family that needs comprehensive, affordable health insurance.
The legislation the President signed is designed to destroy Medicare and turn senior citizens over to the un-tender mercies of HMOs. Our legislation will protect Medicare.
The legislation the President signed provides a skimpy, inadequate, and unreliable drug benefit. Our legislation provides comprehensive drug coverage and assures that senior citizens can get it everywhere in the country without having to join an HMO or other private plan.
The legislation the President signed denies senior citizens the right to get safe drugs at lower prices from Canada and prohibits the government from negotiating with drug companies to get a good deal for senior citizens. This legislation eliminates those special interest, anti-senior provisions.
The legislation the President signed allows unfettered Heath Savings Accounts. These accounts are a bonanza for the healthy, the wealthy, and for favored insurance companies, but they are a disaster for ordinary citizens who need comprehensive coverage and can't afford to put thousands of dollars aside to meet medical needs that insurance is supposed to cover. This legislation repeals this unwise policy.
Senior citizens want prescription drug coverage under Medicare, and they deserve it. Instead, the President and the Republican Party used their control of Congress to attack Medicare itself and force senior citizens into HMOs and other private insurance plans. They want to privatize Medicare, and if they get away with it, they'll try to privatize Social Security too.
Their legislation raises Medicare payments to HMOs so that Medicare can't compete. They use the elderly's own Medicare money to undermine the Medicare program they depend on. According to estimates of the Medicare Actuary, Medicare already pays 16 percent too much for every senior citizen
who joins an HMO or other private insurance plan, because these programs attract the healthiest elderly. IN addition, the Republican legislation raises the base payment to 109 percent of what it costs Medicare to care for an average senior citizen, without even taking into account the health selection bonus the HMOs receive. The total overpayment is 25 percent--a whopping $2,000 per senior citizen. And to top it all off, the legislation establishes a $12 billion slush fund for the new PPO program established by the bill. This isn't competition, its corporate welfare--and senior citizens and the Medicare program are the losers.
Their legislation also creates a vast social experiment--called the ``premium support'' program--using millions of senior citizens as guinea pigs. The sole purpose of the experiment is to raise Medicare premiums so that senior citizens have to give up their Medicare and join an HMO.
Our legislation eliminates these indefensible overpayments and restores parity to the competition between conventional Medicare and private sector alternatives. It repeals the premium support program, so that senior citizens will have choice, not coercion, when they decide whether they prefer conventional Medicare or an HMO.
The assistance with prescription drug costs their program provides is actually very little. Overall, it covers less than 25 percent of the drug expenses faced by the elderly. Senior citizens with $1,000 in drug expenses would pay 86 percent of the cost out of their own pockets. Those with $5,000 in drug expenses would pay 78 percent. When senior citizens' drug costs exceed $2,250, they get no benefits at all until their costs reach $5,100, even though they have to continue to pay premiums. And senior citizens won't necessarily have access to the drugs their doctor's prescribe, if they aren't on the formularies of the private insurance companies that will administer the benefit. A bus ticket to Canada would do more to reduce drug costs for senior citizens than this bill.
Our legislation fills the gaps in the Medicare benefit, so that it truly meets the needs of the elderly and is comparable to the assistance provided under most private insurance plans and that is available to every member of Congress. It assures that the formularies offered by the insurance companies administering the program are not manipulated by the companies to exclude the drugs senior citizens need most.
Nine million senior citizens--almost one of every four--will actually be worse off in their drug coverage under the Bush program than they are today. According to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, almost 3 million senior citizens with good retiree drug coverage through a former employer will lose it as the result of this bill. Six million senior citizens and the disabled who have both Medicare and Medicaid--the poorest of the poor--will actually pay more and have reduced access to the drugs they need. The Bush plan establishes a cruel and demeaning assets test, so that millions of senior citizens with very low incomes are disqualified from the special assistance they need, simply because they have managed to save a little bit for a rainy day, or because they have a car that's worth too much or a burial fund, or personal property like jewelry or furniture.
Our legislation addresses these problems. It ends the discriminatory treatment of senior citizens with private retirement coverage, so that employers do not have an incentive to drop this coverage. It restores benefits to dual eligibles--senior citizens with coverage under both Medicare and Medicaid--so that they will not be made worse off by the new program. It eliminates the assets test.
The Republican bill does nothing about escalating drug prices. Republicans even had the nerve to include a specific prohibition on any role by the Federal government in any negotiation on drug prices. The Congressional Budget Office has estimated that drug prices will actually increase as the result of this bill. No wonder drug company stocks are soaring and senior citizens are concerned. Our legislation will allow reimportation of drugs from Canada--where drug prices are much lower--with stringent controls to assure that any imported drugs meet FDA standards. It will allow the Federal government to negotiate the best possible price for prescription drugs, so that senior citizens and the Medicare program are no longer victimized by exorbitant prices that have little relationship to costs or value.
It's not just seniors who are very concerned. Younger Americans will be hurt too. A separate booby trap in the Republican program includes tax breaks for the healthy and wealthy to buy private policies with very high deductibles that will undermine health insurance for those who are not elderly. These tax breaks, called health savings accounts, encourage people to buy high deductible policies and put money aside in a tax-free savings account. Because the healthy people don't contribute to the cost of regular insurance, premiums skyrocket for people who can't afford thousands of dollars in out-of-pocket costs before their insurance kicks in. The Urban Institute and the American Academy of Actuaries have estimated that premiums for regular insurance policies could increase 60 percent or more. Our bill repeals this unjustified and destructive policy.
The President's signing of the Republican legislation yesterday was the beginning of this fight, not the end. We will never rest until we have protected Medicare and provided senior citizens a prescription drug benefit that truly meets their needs.
I ask unanimous consent that a summary of the ``Defense of Medicare and Real Prescription Drug Benefit Act'' be printed in the Record.
Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded. Mr. President, I send an amendment to the desk and ask for its consideration. Mr. President, I ask unanimous…
Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.
Mr. President, I send an amendment to the desk and ask for its consideration.
Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that reading of the amendment be dispensed with.
Mr. President, this is an amendment I submitted the other day on behalf of myself, Senator Clinton, and Senator DeWine of Ohio. It is an amendment to increase our national seatbelt use rate to 90 percent, a concept that is well known to the Members of the Senate. This amendment is identical to the legislation I introduced last year,
Mr. President, I ask for the yeas and nays on the pending amendment.
I thank the Presiding Officer. I see other hands.
Will the Senator yield for a question?
He is always so courteous about matters such as this, and particularly with reference to our dear friend, John Chafee, who felt very strongly about this legislation. It is more than a technicality, but this is not a sanction in the sense that we simply say each State should achieve 90 percent. Now, there may be ways by which States can achieve that other than following this path which, as the Senator correctly points out, has a certain sequence of penalties. They would meet the law and completely avoid the other path, where there are penalties.
My question is this: When America was faced with the problems of alcohol, which is still prevalent on the roads in our Nation, we, the Congress, enacted what we call the famous .08 law; am I correct?
Didn't we have an identical series of steps in that law that I have put into this law?
I assure the Senator it is almost identical. You can come down to where it has worked in the case of alcohol, and now 47 States out of the 50 have adopted the alcohol legislation. I think, quite frankly, that we can see a similar number of States quickly adopt this legislation--a primary seatbelt law to avoid the penalties. So it is not without precedent, and it also gives the State the alternative of doing it by some other means than going down the path I have outlined.
Mr. President, I say to my distinguished colleague that we selected that time period because of the language the Secretary of Transportation forwarded to the Congress. If there could be a means, if you would be willing to help me devise a formula by which you think a greater degree of fairness can be achieved, I am open to that.
Well, Mr. President, I will take into consideration the views of my distinguished chairman and see what we might do to make that accommodation. I thank the chairman.
Mr. President, I thank my colleague for his courtesy, and that of the distinguished chairman of the committee, Senator Inhofe.
I say to my dear friends: What price do you put on life? No one disputes this legislation will save lives. I don't know of anyone in this Chamber who wouldn't put the highest possible priority on saving lives.
This legislation follows, in many respects, what this Chamber did not too many years ago when it was faced with the problem of trying to reduce the actions and loss of life or injury occasioned by the abuse of alcohol and then driving the automobile.
As a consequence of that, 47 States now have complied with that statute. It is a success in terms of the limited goals that could be set realistically by the .08 drinking level. It achieved the goals in 47 States.
We are asking the average American, about 79 percent of our constituents in
the 50 States--it varies from State to State but overall average, nationally, 79 percent--who use the seatbelt, we are just trying to take it from 79 percent up to 90 percent.
That is the purpose, to save lives, very often innocent lives. It is a well-known, documented fact that in a collision, those who have safety belts on have a higher degree of physical control over the vehicle with the hope of trying to reduce the consequences of the inevitable accident. Without a seatbelt, the driver is often jostled in such a way that he or she loses total control of the car and often an innocent individual is injured.
It is the youth of this Nation who will be the principal beneficiaries of this legislation because, regrettably, it is the young people who are so often involved in these frightful accidents. For whatever reason, macho or otherwise, they do not wear their seatbelts.
This law would simply say that law enforcement in the several States, when they observe a car passing and the driver does not utilize their safety belt, can pull that driver over. In my State today, that driver cannot be pulled over unless he or she is committing an offense other than not wearing their safety belt. Law enforcement can then pull that driver over if he or she is not wearing their safety belt and levy whatever penalties are appropriate. But it is that fear of being pulled over, particularly among those young people, who always seem to be fighting accumulated points for driving infractions, who will be the principal beneficiaries.
The men and women of the Armed Forces, regrettably--so many of them, again, ages 18 to 30--are involved in these accidents. So we are helping our military because they will comply with this law of the several States if there is a mandatory seatbelt law.
When my colleagues cast their vote momentarily, stop to think, what price do you put on a life? I bet if you go back--perhaps I can resurrect how you voted on the .08 legislation for alcohol; this is a direct parallel in almost every way.
This is not mandated because the State, on its own initiative, can devise a program to go to 90 percent. It does not have to follow this track. Go ahead, there might be a better idea in your State to reach 90 percent. Then there is no problem under this law; you have met the criteria.
As that bell rings and you approach the Chamber, just ask yourself the question, What price do I put on a life? Because no one in this Chamber can stand up and say this law would not save lives, would not save injuries, would not save money now expended by your local community to care for those in an accident, many of whom do not have insurance. And the bill stops at your local hospital, unpaid. We did it for .08; we can do it for this.
I thank my colleagues for patiently listening to me. My distinguished colleagues from Missouri read off a list of endorsements and I have 135 groups here. The American Medical Association--I listened very carefully yesterday at a press conference when this was addressed by their representative--is strongly in favor of this. My colleague from Missouri mentioned the chiefs of police. I am proud to say my State, the Virginia Chiefs, endorse this statute. As I say, the President, through his Secretary of Transportation, while not directly addressing this specific piece of legislation, said:
I believe that increasing safety belt usage rates is the
single most effective means to decrease highway fatalities
and injuries.
I have two cosponsors on this bill. I wonder if the distinguished manager would enable me just to contact them?
Yes.
That is a reasonable request. I think the distinguished Senator from New York, Mrs. Clinton, would require, say, 10 minutes and the distinguished Senator from Ohio, Mr. DeWine, and the distinguished Senator from Washington, 10; I will take 5 more minutes; maybe 40 minutes on this side prior to the vote.
Also, Mr. President, we discussed the possibility that I could amend this because I think the distinguished chairman pointed out that 8 months is a short time. So if we could have a gentlemen's understanding that perhaps I could amend it in such a way to take that clause and revise it to enable States to have more time.
Mr. President, we are accommodating the desires of the managers of this bill. Certainly as the chief proponents of this amendment, as long as my cosponsors have an opportunity to speak to it, this matter will be handled fairly.
I yield the floor.
motorcycle safety
Mr. President, I do. Mr. President, S. 1072 will send billions of dollars to the States. It provides the resources to maintain the transportation infrastructure that we use and enjoy every day.…
Mr. President, I do.
Mr. President, S. 1072 will send billions of dollars to the States. It provides the resources to maintain the transportation infrastructure that we use and enjoy every day. Literally hundreds of thousands of jobs are at stake. It is imperative that we pass this bill this week.
Our staff has worked diligently for many months to prepare this comprehensive proposal. They have addressed concerns raised by various Members. It is time for us to complete this bill and send it to the House.
I would like to continue the discussion I began last week and speak for a few minutes about some of the key provisions of the transportation bill. As I have mentioned in earlier statements, our Environment and Public Works Committee conducted a very thorough hearing process as part of our preparations of S. 1072.
A consistent theme from those hearings was that the national transportation program has worked well over the last 12 years, following the principles set forth in ISTEA and enjoying the funding guarantees established in TEA-21.
We therefore sought to refine rather than revise the program. A key reflection of that decision is the pattern of resource allocation in the bill.
We grew each of the core programs--interstate maintenance, national highway system, bridge, surface transportation, and congestion mitigation and air quality improvement--in proportion to its funding in current law. We could have played politics with these funding allocations, but we chose to maintain the overall balance of the program.
Also based on consistent testimony from our many witnesses, we retained the flexibility that has become a hallmark of the surface transportation program.
Rather than make political adjustments in Washington to suit the needs of an individual State or region, we yield to State and local officials, working through an open planning process, to move funds among the core programs as best fits their unique and individual needs.
Further, under current law and reinforced in S. 1072, we permit money to be ``flexed'' among the various transport modes--highways, transit, bicycles, pedestrians, intermodal transfers, and rail.
By maintaining balance among the core programs along with flexibility on program and modal spending at the State and local level, we seek to foster a more balanced and ``right fit'' outcome on the ground.
The right combination of investments will vary from place to place. And a single solution--roads only or transit only--is likely to be a poor fit for a diverse and dynamic modern American community.
As I traveled our Nation over the past 2 years, I saw intermodalism on the rise. In place after place, the solution to traffic congestion and the solution to freight mobility combined roadway and rail investments with improved operations.
The balance and flexibility in S. 1072 will be essential to support these complex and ambitious solutions.
I yield the floor.
Will the Senator yield?
I have been here a long time, as the Senator from Oklahoma has. Have we had anybody come down?
Well, I hope the Senator from Ohio will get such enthusiasm created with his speech that we can spend the rest of the time making some progress.
Yes.
Madam President, I also add to the accolades to my good friend from Mississippi for putting in perspective where we are and what we must do to make this a reality. This Nation cannot wait much longer to have the funds that will be available under this bill in order to enhance the employment growth as well as the needs of this Nation to be more efficient and effective in all categories of life. We must work together. We must work quickly. And we should start today.
I thank the Chair.
Will the Senator yield for a question?
I would like to take you back to when the highway program was started by President Eisenhower. As I remember, one of the big concerns at that time was the inability of this Nation to defend itself, some real problems that were created for the defense of this Nation, because the highway system from East to West and North to South was so poor that in the event we did get an invasion in different areas, we would have little or no chance to get the troops there and mobilize them on the scene. We recognized at that time we had serious defense problems unless we improved the infrastructure of the United States. Am I correct in my understanding of that?
Do we not have other problems, in the sense of trying to move freight across the country and making the highways safe? We took the intermodal transportation systems we had, and a lot of that takes funds we would normally use, is that not true? Mr. Reid, yes. That is why it was called intermodal transportation system--ISTEA.
The reason, as I said before, is we learned a few bills ago that just simply pouring more asphalt is not the way to solve all the problems in this country. What this bill takes into consideration is ways to more efficiently move people and products across our country. We have done the best we can on this.
Again, I don't see how this, in any form or fashion, can be pork. This is different than our regular appropriations bills. I think people are overly critical of those, but this is not even in the same category.
I also go back to some of Senator Moynihan's concerns years ago. Now looking at what is going on in China and other places, with the development of intermodal systems or the ability to travel at much faster rates of speed, to move--in their case--millions of people who want to travel, is that not also something we are trying to look at, trying to make sure we will not lose our position in the world with respect to our transportation methodology?
Also, isn't this a job creation bill and is this not a time when this Nation is in dire need of improving the employment of people who desire to have work?
Madam President, I appreciate the contributions of the Senator in helping us better understand the need for and also the great benefits of this legislation. I am sure when Members go to a vote--if we ever get to a vote--we will overwhelmingly accept the Senator's concept of what should and could be done. I appreciate what the Senator has done to make this bill as good as it is.
Madam President, I would like to make one further statement. The Senator from Arizona indicated we dramatically changed the highway formula. The bill reported out of the EPW Committee, in fact, does not change the underlying formulas for interstate bridges, national highways, and air quality. The only change we made was to increase the return to donor States while ensuring growth to each and every State. The EPW Committee wanted to put forth a bill that achieved fair balance and growth in every State. As in all of our national programs, we direct resources in our bill to the 50 States in order to maintain a national system. If we only sent funds to programs on a State-by-State basis, and then based it only on the ratios of the taxes paid from each State, we would be balkanized and disunified.
I believe our bill is fair, balanced, equitable, and national in scope. As States grow, donor States grow. Every State is equipped to carry the share of the burden it is supporting on the national transportation system.
This is a good bill. Let us get it done.
Mr. President, today I am introducing the Oglala Sioux Tribe Angostura Irrigation Project Rehabilitation and Development Act. I have worked with the leadership of the Oglala Sioux Tribe to develop…
Mr. President, today I am introducing the Oglala Sioux Tribe Angostura Irrigation Project Rehabilitation and Development Act. I have worked with the leadership of the Oglala Sioux Tribe to develop this legislation, which is intended to benefit the Lakota people by restoring critical water resources and promoting economic development on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation.
The Angostura Unit of the Bureau of Reclamation was first authorized by Congress under the Water Conservation and Utilization Act of 1939, and later continued under the Flood Control Act of 1944, otherwise known as the Pick-Sloan Missouri River Basin Project. The program consisted primarily of building the six mainstem dams on the Missouri River, to be operated by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, along with several Bureau-operated irrigation and water development projects. The Angostura Unit was designed to provide irrigation to 12,218 acres of farm and ranch land in the Angostura Irrigation District, as well as flood control, fish, and wildlife benefits.
Tribes in South Dakota existed long before the creation of the Bureau of Reclamation or the implementation of the water development projects in South Dakota today. Tribes therefore have a vested interest in the operation of these projects. While the projects have been helpful in meeting their authorized goals, they also contribute to adverse economic and environmental conditions on tribal reservations. In particular, the Missouri River reservoirs managed by the Corps led to the taking of thousands of acres of fertile river land from Indian tribes, and with that taking, the tribes lost valuable natural resources.
Federal agencies were directed through subsequent acts to provide for the rehabilitation of the lost fish and wildlife habitat and to generally improve conditions on the reservations, but results were slow in coming, and often never materialized. Legislation was enacted several years ago to finally address some of these issues, but much more remains to be done before South Dakota's tribes realize the benefits that Bureau of Reclamation and Corps projects have provided other parts of the state.
In addition to the irrigation benefits the Angostura Unit provides to ranchers and agricultural producers in the area, a substantial recreation industry has developed around the reservoir, including boating and fishing. However, members of the Oglala Sioux on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation have not seen equal economic benefits from the Angostura Unit as those experienced from the recreation and irrigation in Fall River County. The Cheyenne River forms the northern boundary of the reservation, which is just 20 miles downstream from the reservoir, and is an important natural resource for the tribe. The river is essential to the survival of riparian vegetation, traditional medicinal plants, fish, and wildlife habitat. The impoundment of water in the reservoir has curbed the Cheyenne River's natural flow, and water quality is reduced. This, coupled with the worst drought the region has seen in a decade, severely affects water resources on the reservation.
The Oglala Sioux Tribe's leadership has long had a desire to address these problems, and this legislation is an important manifestation of their effort. During revision of the Angostura Unit's water management plan in 2002, the Bureau of Reclamation considered a variety of alternatives for future operations, but the tribe felt their concerns about the economic and environmental effects the reservoir has on the reservation were not adequately addressed. One alternative considered by the Bureau of Reclamation during this review would return natural flows to the Cheyenne River, and would provide more water downstream for the tribe and would improve reservation conditions. The Bureau took a different approach, however--one that calls for improved irrigation operations and a more efficient distribution of water resources in the irrigation district. These improvements would help free up additional water resources and hopefully lead to improved conditions on the Cheyenne River that would benefit the tribe.
The Angostura Irrigation Project Rehabilitation and Development Act would authorize the efficiency improvements proposed by the Bureau of Reclamation, benefitting both existing water users and the tribe. The legislation also would authorize the creation of a trust fund to compensate the tribe for the economic impacts and lost natural resources caused by the operation of the Angostura Unit. This trust fund will be used by the tribe to promote economic development, improve infrastructure, and enhance the education, health, and general welfare of the Oglala Lakota people. This dual track will both help ensure continued and efficient operation of the Angostura Unit and the Angostura Irrigation District, while helping to mitigate the problems facing the Oglala Sioux Tribe, and providing the tribe with the natural and financial resources it needs to plan for the future and improve the quality of life for all tribal members.
This legislation is just one small, yet important, step toward ensuring that U.S. natural resource policies are fair to American Indians, and I look forward to working with my colleagues to enact it.
I ask unanimous consent that the text of the legislation be printed in the Record.
Mr. President, yesterday, the President signed the Medicare Prescription Drug, Improvement, and Modernization Act of 2003. But the name of that Act is completely misleading. In fact, the Act fundamentally damages the successful and popular Medicare program--a long-term Republican goal. And this Act does more to ensure that drug prices remain high than it does to assist beneficiaries in paying for their drugs.
Why? Because drug companies want it that way. Republicans with financial ties to the industry are protecting drug company interests over the interests of seniors and people with disabilities.
America's seniors pay the highest drug prices in the world, even though American taxpayers subsidize the research that produces many of those drugs. The Medicare bill signed by the President squanders our chances of remedying that inequity. Not only does the bill effectively prohibit the reimportation of more affordable drugs from other countries, it actually prohibits Medicare from using its tremendous bargaining power to ensure that beneficiaries pay lower prices and that our scant resources are most effectively used.
Today, Senate Democrats are siding with the seniors. We are introducing legislation that would repeal the provision barring Medicare from negotiating for lower prices. The Medicare Prescription Drug Price Reduction Act would give Medicare the authority to negotiate with drug companies to obtain the lowest possible prices for seniors and people with disabilities. House Democrats introduced a companion bill yesterday. Together, we will fight for the goal of giving Medicare beneficiaries the drug benefit and lower prices they deserve.
Mr. President, I rise today to introduce the bipartisan Essential Air Service Preservation Act of 2003. I am pleased to have my colleague Senator Snowe as the principal cosponsor of the bill. Senator…
Mr. President, I rise today to introduce the bipartisan Essential Air Service Preservation Act of 2003. I am pleased to have my colleague Senator Snowe as the principal cosponsor of the bill. Senator Snowe has been a long-time champion of commercial air service in rural areas, and I appreciate her continued leadership on this important legislation. Senators Shumer, Leahy, Clinton, Ben Nelson, Lincoln, Hagel, Jeffords, Domenici, and Harkin, are also cosponsors of the bill.
Congress established the Essential Air Service Program in 1978 to ensure that communities that had commercial air service before airline deregulation could continue to receive scheduled service. Without EAS, many rural communities would have no commercial air service at all.
Our bill is very simple. It preserves Congress's intent in the Essential Air Service program by repealing a provision in the FAA reauthorization bill that would for the first time require communities to pay for their commercial air service.
Congress has already barred the Department of Transportation from implementing any cost sharing requirements on Essential Air Service communities for one year. This bill would now make the ban permanent. I believe that implementing any mandatory cost sharing is the first step in the total elimination of scheduled air service for many rural communities.
It is indeed a sad commentary on this Congress that my colleagues and I have to introduce this bill at all. Time and again Congress has gone on record opposing mandatory cost sharing for EAS communities, yet it keeps coming back.
In June, during consideration of the FAA reauthorization bill, Senator Inhofe and I, with 13 bipartisan cosponsors, offered an amendment that struck out a provision in that bill imposing mandatory cost sharing on some EAS communities.
I was pleased the full Senate agreed and voted to eliminate mandatory cost sharing from the FAA reauthorization bill. In parallel, the full House of Representatives adopted a similar amendment to the FAA bill. Thus, the bills that were sent to conference required no cost sharing for EAS communities.
Most students of government would tell you that when a majority of both houses of Congress have voted against a particular measure, the conferees couldn't arbitrarily put it back in. Well, they did. In another example of this Congress's secret back room dealing, the conferees excluded the minority members, flagrantly ignored the will of the majority in the House and the Senate, and restored the very cost- sharing language both houses one month before had voted to reject. I believe adding this extraneous and objectionable provision was an egregious violation of the conference process.
When cost sharing showed up in the FAA conference report, Congress, with bipartisan support, stopped the Department of Transportation from implementing the measure for one year by barring the use of 2004 appropriations for that purpose. The bill we are introducing today permanently repeals the mandatory cost-sharing requirements that the conferees reinserted into the FAA reauthorization bill after both the House and Senate had voted not to include them. I hope both houses of Congress will again do the right thing by passing our bill.
All across America, small communities face ever-increasing hurdles to promoting their economic growth and development. Today, many rural areas lack access to interstate or even four-lane highways, railroads or broadband telecommunications. Business development in rural areas frequently hinges on the availability of scheduled air service. For small communities, commercial air service provides a critical link to the national and international transportation system.
The Essential Air Service Program currently ensures commercial air service to over 100 communities in 34 states. EAS supports an additional 33 communities in Alaska. Because of increasing costs and the current financial turndown in the aviation industry, particularly among commuter airlines, about 28 additional communities have been forced into the EAS program since the terrorist attacks in 2001.
In my State of New Mexico, five cities currently rely on EAS for their commercial air service. The communities are Clovis, Hobbs, Carlsbad, Alamogordo and my hometown of Silver City. In each case commercial service is provided to Albuquerque, the State's business center and largest city.
I believe this ill-conceived proposal requiring cities to pay to continue to have commercial air service could not come at a worse time for small communities already facing depressed economies and declining tax revenues.
As I understand it, the mandatory cost-sharing requirements in the FAA reauthorization bill could affect communities in as many as 22 states. Based an analyses by my staff, the individual cities that may be affected are as follows:
Alabama--Muscle Shoals; Arizona--Prescott, Kingman;
Arkansas--Hot Springs, Harrison, Jonesboro; Colorado--Pueblo;
Georgia--Athens; Iowa--Fort Dodge, Burlington; Kansas--
Salina; Kentucky--Owensboro; Maine--Augusta, Rockland;
Michigan--Iron Mt.; Mississippi--Laurel; Nebraska--Norfolk;
New Hampshire--Lebanon; New Mexico--Hobbs, Alamogordo,
Clovis; New York--Saranac Lake, Watertown, Jamestown,
Plattsburgh; Oklahoma--Ponca City, Enid; Pennsylvania--
Johnstown, Oil City, Bradford, Altoona; South Dakota--
Brookings, Watertown; Tennessee--Jackson; Texas--Victoria;
Vermont--Rutland; Washington--Moses Lake.
As I see it, the choice here is clear: If we do not preserve the Essential Air Service Program today, we could soon see the end of all commercial air service in rural areas. The EAS program provides vital resources that help link rural communities to the national and global aviation system. Our bill will preserve the essential air service program and help ensure affordable, reliable, and safe air service remains available in rural America. Congress is already on record opposing mandatory cost sharing. I hope all Senators will once again join us in opposing this attack on rural America.
I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.
Mr. President, at the request of the administration, I am pleased to introduce the Additional Protocol Implementation Act of 2003. This important legislation is needed to implement the provisions of…
Mr. President, at the request of the administration, I am pleased to introduce the Additional Protocol Implementation Act of 2003. This important legislation is needed to implement the provisions of the Protocol to the Agreement of the International Atomic Energy Agency, IAEA, Regarding Safeguards in the United States.
The United States signed the Additional Protocol in Vienna on June 12, 1998. President Bush submitted the Additional Protocol to the Senate on May 9, 2002. The State Department sent the implementing legislation to us on November 19, 2003, and asked that it be considered in conjunction with the Senate's advice and consent on the Protocol. The adoption of this agreement is an important step in demonstrating U.S. leadership in the fight against the spread of nuclear weapons. The Additional Protocol will provide the United States and the IAEA with another tool as we attempt to secure broader inspection rights in non- nuclear-weapon states that are parties to the Treaty on the Nonproliferation of Nuclear Weapons, NPT.
When the Committee on Foreign Relations reported out the NPT in 1968, it noted that ``the treaty's fundamental purpose is to slow the spread of nuclear weapons by prohibiting the nuclear weapon states which are party to the treaty from transferring nuclear weapons to others, and by barring the non-nuclear weapon countries from receiving, manufacturing, or otherwise acquiring nuclear weapons.'' Since the Senate ratified the NPT, we have seen 188 states join the United States in approving the treaty. But recently we also have seen a disturbing increase in the global availability of nuclear materials and reprocessing and enrichment technology. To ensure that these materials and technologies are devoted only to peaceful purposes, the IAEA must have the power to conduct intrusive inspections at almost any location in a non-nuclear- weapon state to verify state parties' commitments under the NPT.
The world community has learned that existing safeguard arrangements in non-nuclear-weapon states do not provide the IAEA with a complete and accurate picture of possible nuclear weapons-related activities. It is critical that the IAEA have the ability to expand the scope of its activities in states that pose a potential proliferation threat. At this point, the only means at the IAEA's disposal, beyond existing safeguards arrangements, is the Model Additional Protocol.
The United States, as a declared nuclear-weapon state party to the NPT, may exclude the application of IAEA safeguards on its nuclear activities. Under the negotiated Additional Protocol, the United States also has the right to exclude activities and sites of direct national security significance in accordance with its National Security exclusion. This provision is crucial to U.S. acceptance of the Additional Protocol and provides a basis for the protection of U.S. nuclear weapons-related activities, sites, and materials as a declared nuclear power.
The Additional Protocol does not contain any new arms control or disarmament obligations for the United States. While there are increased rights granted to the IAEA for the conduct of inspections in the United States, the administration has assured the committee that the likelihood of an inspection occurring in the United States is very low. Nevertheless, should an inspection under the Additional Protocol be potentially harmful to U.S. national security interests, the United States has the right, through the National Security Exclusion, to prevent such an inspection.
The Committee on Foreign Relations will hold hearings early next year to consider the Additional Protocol. I am confident the Committee will draft a resolution of ratification that will enjoy the support of the senate. Ratification of this treaty and passage of its implementing legislation would be an important demonstration of the U.S. commitment to vigorous and expansive authority for the IAEA in non-nuclear-weapon states.
I am pleased to introduce this legislation today as a statement of the Committee's strong support for aggressive verification capabilities in the global fight against the spread of weapons of mass destruction. I look forward to working closely with my friend, Senator Hatch, Chairman of the Committee on the Judiciary, to construct legislation that protects U.S. national security interests, while strengthening the ability of the IAEA to discover illegal nuclear weapons activities.
the package I send to the desk today contains a letter from the Department of State, the administration's implementing legislation, and a section-by-section analysis, all submitted by the administration.
I ask unanimous consent that the referenced letter and analysis be printed in the Record.
Mr. President, I, first, commend my good friend from Oklahoma, and then I will give my synopsis of some of the areas of this bill. I have just never worked with someone who has been more…
Mr. President, I, first, commend my good friend from Oklahoma, and then I will give my synopsis of some of the areas of this bill. I have just never worked with someone who has been more cooperative--and our staffs--to bring about a consensus in a very difficult bill. A little change here and a little change there will change millions of dollars and who it goes to and will bring about a consensus that will at least make enough people happy to vote for the bill, which is the ultimate goal.
We have made great progress. I think we are now in a position where we are going to be able to move forward.
TEA-21 provided record funding levels for transportation, which allowed States and local governments to make greater investments in our transportation systems than ever before. S. 1072 will continue that trend.
In crafting this bill, Chairman Inhofe, Senator Bond, Senator Reid, and I wanted to ensure the resources available under this bill would be spent wisely and responsibly.
During our hearings, we learned of challenges facing communities and transportation agencies trying to manage a full load of increasingly complex transportation projects. In response, we crafted a bill that will improve the delivery and stewardship of the Federal aid highway program.
First, we have expanded the scope of a program called ``value engineering.'' Value engineering provides States and local governments an additional approach to examining transportation projects before they are finalized. It promotes improved design, construction, and funding of transportation projects.
Second, we have included provisions to address issues that arise when State and local governments develop large-scale projects, so-called mega projects that cost over $1 billion.
To ensure these projects are developed and managed efficiently, S. 1072 requires project management and financial plans.
Finally, to ensure that money received by the States is properly accounted for, we direct the Secretary to annually review States' financial management systems.
As my colleagues can see, S. 1072 provides record levels of funding for transportation investment and the provisions to ensure we are good stewards of the public funds.
I look forward to going into the amendment process and making sure we work, hopefully, efficiently and effectively and quickly to get this bill before us in final form before too long.
I yield the floor, and I suggest the absence of a quorum.
Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.
Mr. President, the transportation planning process is a critical component of any surface transportation program or project. Poor planning may lead to cost overruns, project delays, and even project cancellations. An early and comprehensive planning process can help stakeholders and project sponsors to identify and overcome potential problems so transportation projects proceed smoothly.
Our bill includes several provisions to encourage better planning practices at both the State and metropolitan levels. We make some additions to current law to encourage transportation planning agencies to consider our environmental, natural resource, and community health issues early in the planning process.
The bill directs transportation planners to consult with relevant resource agencies when developing long-range transportation plans.
Improved coordination will promote long-range plans and project proposals that adequately consider and address the diverse implications of transportation projects. Improved interagency consultation and coordination is only one component of a successful plan.
As I have said before, transportation investment is about people and communities. It is about making life better for our citizens by providing an efficient, safe, and comprehensive transportation system.
A successful transportation program is one that considers the needs and the wishes of the people it serves. Our bill will enhance public participation in the planning process, encouraging projects that meet our infrastructure needs without sacrificing the environment or quality of life.
Finally, our bill emphasizes the role of new and emerging technologies in transportation planning. Geospatial mapping technologies have inspired innovative and successful planning processes in many States around the country. We encourage States to continue to develop and implement those technologies and to integrate them into the transportation planning process.
I suggest the absence of a quorum.
Mr. President, it is the responsibility of the military departments to ``organize, train, and equip,'' the armed forces of the United States. Yet, reports indicate that nearly a quarter of the…
Mr. President, it is the responsibility of the military departments to ``organize, train, and equip,'' the armed forces of the United States. Yet, reports indicate that nearly a quarter of the 130,000 U.S. troops in Iraq still wait for the latest ``Interceptor'' body armor, which is a Kevlar vest with ``small-arms protective inserts''--boron carbide ceramic plates--that protect critical organs from weapons fired by assault rifles like the Ak-47s favored by Iraqi insurgents.
While the Congress has taken measures to provide the latest personal protective gear to all U.S. forces in Iraq and Afghanistan, over the last several months we have heard alarming reports of family members scurrying to buy bullet-proof vests to send to their loved ones in Iraq. Military families are patriotic and selfless. Their devotion is no less than that of those serving in harm's way. They have more than enough to worry about, let alone whether or not they can find and buy the gear that might save their child's life. This is the responsibility of the Department of Defense, plain and simple. There is no excuse for their failure.
On November 19, 2003, acting-Secretary of the Army Les Brownlee admitted to Congress that the administration failed to provide basic equipment, like body armor, to all of our forces in Iraq because, as he put it, ``Events since the end of major combat operations in Iraq have differed from our expectations and have combined to cause problems.'' The Washington Post reported recently that, ``Going into the war in Iraq, the Army decided to outfit only dismounted combat soldiers with the plated vests, which cost about $1,500 each. But when Iraqi insurgents began ambushing convoys and killing clerks as well as combat troops, controversy erupted.'' I ask unanimous consent that the full text of this article be included in the Record.
Stories abound of family members, fathers and mothers, wives, and others paying for personal body armor out of their own pockets and shipping the much needed equipment to Iraq. Consider the case of Mimi McCreary of Victorville, CA, whose son Olaf received his bullet-proof vest not from his reserve unit, but from his colleagues on the Clinton, SC, police department. Or consider the 120 members of the National Guard from Marin County, CA, who were unsure of when their body armor would be made available. Instead of letting their neighbors go off to war, the men and women of law enforcement in Marin County donated more than 60 vests so that they would have ``at least some protection.'' Or consider Army Specialist Richard Murphy of Sciota, PA, whose parents, Susan and Joe Werfelman, purchased the ceramic plates missing from their son's vest. According to Murphy's step-father, he ``called us frantically three or four times on this . . . We said, ``If the Army is not going to protect him, we've got to do it.''
We owe Mr. and Mrs. Werfelman and Mrs. McCreary and every other military family an incredible debt of gratitude. They raised children who believe in this country and are risking all in service to it. The last thing we should ask of them now is to take money out of their own pockets to buy the gear their kids should have had in the first place. But that's exactly what poor planning has led to.
The legislation I introduce today with Senator Kennedy requires the Department of Defense to reimburse family members who paid money out of their own pockets to provide the personal body armor that the government failed to provide our troops. Lives and blood will always be the cost of war. But it is a dereliction of duty to send anyone into harm's way without basic protective gear, and it is disgusting for family members to have to take this burden of outfitting their loved ones for war. This grateful Nation must make right by those family members and reimburse their expenses in providing these materials to their sons and daughters, husbands and wives. Let families send pictures and letters from home. The Department of Defense should provide the gear.
Mr. President, today I rise to introduce the Voter Confidence and Increased Accessibility Act. In 2000, Florida grabbed the national spotlight as an unfortunate example of an electoral process gone…
Mr. President, today I rise to introduce the Voter Confidence and Increased Accessibility Act.
In 2000, Florida grabbed the national spotlight as an unfortunate example of an electoral process gone awry. The question of who would assume our Nation's highest office became contingent on such things as whether a chad was bulging or hanging. In the aftermath of that debacle, Americans demand that Congress improve the accuracy and integrity of our electoral process. Congress responded with the Help America Vote Act (HAVA), which we passed in 2002.
HAVA aimed to modernize our electoral system and there have been some positive developments. Under the law, States have replaced punch card and lever voting systems with modern computer voting machines. Modernization, however, has failed to overcome all the pitfalls seen in recent elections. In 2002, Floridians were subject to another failure of our electoral process when a software error failed to court approximately 100,000 votes.
As it now stands, computer-voting systems--including the popular touch screen models--are not mandated to include a paper record verifying voter intent. In the absence of a paper trail, confirming the accuracy of a computer voting machine is very difficult, sometimes even impossible. Further, voting irregularities, security intrusions and electronic errors can go unnoticed. We have a duty to our democracy to continue to address challenges that threaten to undermine the security and reliability of our electoral system.
The Voter Confidence & Increased Accessibility Act renews our commitment to fulfilling that obligation. It will take us one step closer to our ultimate goal: ensuring that every vote really counts. This legislation responds to a set of challenges presented by computer voting systems. It would require all voting systems produce a verifiable paper record. States would also be given assistance in meeting this standard through funds dedicated to HAVA.
The Voter Confidence & Increased Accessibility Act also stipulates several other provisions to ensure that every vote really counts. It would prohibit the use of unreported software and wireless communication devices in all voting systems. It would also restrict electronic communications from voting machines, permitting outgoing transmissions of vote totals only.
The legislation specifies that voting systems must comply with these standards in time for the November 2004 general election. In the event that a locality is unable to get their computer voting systems compliant by this deadline, they are authorized to use a paper system as an interim measure. The Federal Government would be authorized to pay the cost of these paper systems for the November 2004 election.
The Voter Confidence & Increased Accessibility Act also requires that individuals with disabilities must be accommodated with electronic voting systems by January 1, 2006, a year earlier than mandated by HAVA. While a paper record of a disabled persons vote is not expressly required, voting systems for disabled persons must include a means for voter verification. In the event a jurisdiction cannot meet this standard, disabled voters must be given the option to utilize a temporary paper system, with the assistance of an aide of their choosing.
Finally, the legislation would require the Election Assistance Commission to conduct unannounced recounts in .5 percent of domestic jurisdictions and .5 percent of overseas jurisdictions. This way, Congress and America's voters can be assured that the election equipment is operating properly, and votes are really being counted.
Creating these new standards will help ensure that our elections accurately reflect the intent of the voting public, and put into place an election system in which Americans can have full confidence.
Bill Text
Latest available legislative text
[Congressional Bills 108th Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
[S. 1993 Introduced in Senate (IS)]
108th CONGRESS
1st Session
S. 1993
To amend title 23, United States Code, to provide a highway safety
improvement program that includes incentives to States to enact primary
safety belt laws.
_______________________________________________________________________
IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES
December 9, 2003
Mr. Warner (for himself and Mrs. Clinton) introduced the following
bill; which was read twice and referred to the Committee on Environment
and Public Works
_______________________________________________________________________
A BILL
To amend title 23, United States Code, to provide a highway safety
improvement program that includes incentives to States to enact primary
safety belt laws.
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the
United States of America in Congress assembled,
SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.
This Act may be cited as the ``National Highway Safety Act of
2003''.
SEC. 2. HIGHWAY SAFETY IMPROVEMENT PROGRAM.
(a) Safety Improvement.--
(1) In general.--Section 148 of title 23, United States
Code, is amended to read as follows:
``Sec. 148. Highway safety improvement program
``(a) Definitions.--In this section:
``(1) Highway safety improvement program.--The term
`highway safety improvement program' means the program carried
out under this section.
``(2) Highway safety improvement project.--
``(A) In general.--The term `highway safety
improvement project' means a project described in the
State strategic highway safety plan that--
``(i) corrects or improves a hazardous road
location or feature; or
``(ii) addresses a highway safety problem.
``(B) Inclusions.--The term `highway safety
improvement project' includes a project for--
``(i) an intersection safety improvement;
``(ii) pavement and shoulder widening
(including addition of a passing lane to remedy
an unsafe condition);
``(iii) installation of rumble strips or
another warning device, if the rumble strips or
other warning devices do not adversely affect
the safety or mobility of bicyclists and
pedestrians;
``(iv) installation of a skid-resistant
surface at an intersection or other location
with a high frequency of accidents;
``(v) an improvement for pedestrian or
bicyclist safety;
``(vi)(I) construction of any project for
the elimination of hazards at a railway-highway
crossing that is eligible for funding under
section 130, including the separation or
protection of grades at railway-highway
crossings;
``(II) construction of a railway-highway
crossing safety feature; or
``(III) the conduct of a model traffic
enforcement activity at a railway-highway
crossing;
``(vii) construction of a traffic calming
feature;
``(viii) elimination of a roadside
obstacle;
``(ix) improvement of highway signage and
pavement markings;
``(x) installation of a priority control
system for emergency vehicles at signalized
intersections;
``(xi) installation of a traffic control or
other warning device at a location with high
accident potential;
``(xii) safety-conscious planning;
``(xiii) improvement in the collection and
analysis of crash data;
``(xiv) planning, equipment, operational
activities, or traffic enforcement activities
(including police assistance) relating to
workzone safety;
``(xv) installation of guardrails, barriers
(including barriers between construction work
zones and traffic lanes for the safety of
motorists and workers), and crash attenuators;
``(xvi) the addition or retrofitting of
structures or other measures to eliminate or
reduce accidents involving vehicles and
wildlife; or
``(xvii) installation and maintenance of
signs (including fluorescent, yellow-green
signs) at pedestrian-bicycle crossings and in
school zones.
``(3) Primary safety belt law.--The term `primary safety
belt law' means a law that authorizes a law enforcement officer
to issue a citation for the failure of the operator of, or any
passenger in, a motor vehicle to wear a safety belt as required
by State law, based solely on that failure and without regard
to whether there is any other violation of law.
``(4) Safety project under any other section.--
``(A) In general.--The term `safety project under
any other section' means a project carried out for the
purpose of safety under any other section of this
title.
``(B) Inclusion.--The term `safety project under
any other section' includes a project to--
``(i) promote the awareness of the public
and educate the public concerning highway
safety matters; or
``(ii) enforce highway safety laws.
``(5) State highway safety improvement program.--The term
`State highway safety improvement program' means projects or
strategies included in the State strategic highway safety plan
carried out as part of the State transportation improvement
program under section 135(f).
``(6) State strategic highway safety plan.--The term `State
strategic highway safety plan' means a plan developed by the
State transportation department that--
``(A) is developed after consultation with--
``(i) a highway safety representative of
the Governor of the State;
``(ii) regional transportation planning
organizations, if any;
``(iii) representatives of major modes of
transportation;
``(iv) local traffic enforcement officials;
``(v) persons responsible for administering
section 130 at the State level;
``(vi) representatives conducting Operation
Lifesaver;
``(vii) representatives conducting a motor
carrier safety program under section 31104 or
31107 of title 49;
``(viii) motor vehicle administration
agencies; and
``(ix) other major State and local safety
stakeholders;
``(B) analyzes and makes effective use of State,
regional, or local crash data;
``(C) addresses engineering, management, operation,
education, enforcement, and emergency services elements
of highway safety as key factors in evaluating highway
projects;
``(D) considers safety needs of, and high-fatality
segments of, public roads;
``(E) considers the results of State, regional, or
local transportation and highway safety planning
processes in existence as of the date of enactment of
this section;
``(F) describes a program of projects or strategies
to reduce or eliminate safety hazards;
``(G) is approved by the Governor of the State or a
responsible State agency; and
``(H) is consistent with the requirements of
section 135(f).
``(b) Program.--
``(1) In general.--The Secretary shall carry out a highway
safety improvement program.
``(2) Purpose.--The purpose of the highway safety
improvement program shall be to achieve a significant reduction
in traffic fatalities and serious injuries on public roads.
``(c) Eligibility.--
``(1) In general.--To receive funds under this section, a
State shall have in effect a State highway safety improvement
program under which the State--
``(A) develops and implements a State strategic
highway safety plan that identifies and analyzes
highway safety problems and opportunities as provided
in paragraph (2);
``(B) produces a program of projects or strategies
to reduce identified safety problems; and
``(C) evaluates the plan on a regular basis to
ensure the accuracy of the data and priority of
proposed improvements.
``(2) Identification and analysis of highway safety
problems and opportunities.--As part of the State strategic
highway safety plan, a State shall--
``(A) have in place a crash data system with the
ability to perform safety problem identification and
countermeasure analysis;
``(B) based on the analysis required by
subparagraph (A), identify hazardous locations,
sections, and elements (including roadside obstacles,
railway-highway crossing needs, and unmarked or poorly
marked roads) that constitute a danger to motorists,
bicyclists, pedestrians, and other highway users;
``(C) adopt strategic and performance-based goals
that--
``(i) address traffic safety, including
behavioral and infrastructure problems and
opportunities on all roads and bridges on the
Federal-aid system;
``(ii) focus resources on areas of greatest
need; and
``(iii) are coordinated with other State
highway safety programs;
``(D) advance the capabilities of the State for
traffic records data collection, analysis, and
integration with other sources of safety data (such as
road inventories) in a manner that--
``(i) complements the State highway safety
program under chapter 4 and the commercial
vehicle safety plan under section 31102 of
title 49;
``(ii) includes all roads and bridges on
the Federal-aid system; and
``(iii) identifies hazardous locations,
sections, and elements on public roads that
constitute a danger to motorists, bicyclists,
and pedestrians;
``(E)(i) determine priorities for the correction of
hazardous road locations, sections, and elements
(including railway-highway crossing improvements), as
identified through crash data analysis;
``(ii) identify opportunities for preventing the
development of such hazardous conditions; and
``(iii) establish and implement a schedule of
highway safety improvement projects for hazard
correction and hazard prevention; and
``(F)(i) establish an evaluation process to analyze
and assess results achieved by highway safety
improvement projects carried out in accordance with
procedures and criteria established by this section;
and
``(ii) use the information obtained under clause
(i) in setting priorities for highway safety
improvement projects.
``(d) Eligible Projects.--
``(1) In general.--A State may obligate funds apportioned
to the State under this section to carry out--
``(A) any highway safety improvement project on
any--
``(i) road or bridge on the Federal-aid
system; or
``(ii) publicly owned bicycle or pedestrian
pathway or trail; or
``(B) as provided in subsection (e), for other
safety projects.
``(2) Use of other funding for safety.--
``(A) Effect of section.--Nothing in this section
prohibits the use of funds made available under other
provisions of this title for highway safety improvement
projects.
``(B) Use of other funds.--States are encouraged to
address the full scope of their safety needs and
opportunities by using funds made available under other
provisions of this title (except a provision that specifically
prohibits that use).
``(e) Flexible Funding for States With a Strategic Highway Safety
Plan.--
``(1) In general.--To further the implementation of a State
strategic highway safety plan, a State may use up to 25 percent
of the amount of funds made available under this section for a
fiscal year to carry out safety projects under any other
section as provided in the State strategic highway safety plan.
``(2) Other transportation and highway safety plans.--
Nothing in this subsection requires a State to revise any State
process, plan, or program in effect on the date of enactment of
this section.
``(f) Reports.--
``(1) In general.--A State shall submit to the Secretary a
report that--
``(A) describes progress being made to implement
highway safety improvement projects under this section;
``(B) assesses the effectiveness of those
improvements; and
``(C) describes the extent to which the
improvements funded under this section contribute to
the goals of--
``(i) reducing the number of fatalities on
roadways;
``(ii) reducing the number of roadway-
related injuries;
``(iii) reducing the occurrences of
roadway-related accidents;
``(iv) mitigating the consequences of
roadway-related accidents; and
``(v) reducing the occurrences of roadway-
railroad grade crossing accidents.
``(2) Contents; schedule.--The Secretary shall establish
the content and schedule for a report under paragraph (1).
``(g) Federal Share of Highway Safety Improvement Projects.--The
Federal share of the cost of a highway safety improvement project
carried out with funds made available under this section shall be 90
percent.
``(h) Use of Funds.--
``(1) Projects under section 402.--For fiscal year 2005 and
each fiscal year thereafter, 10 percent of the funds made
available to a State under this section shall be obligated for
projects under section 402, unless by October 1 of the fiscal
year, the State--
``(A) has in effect a primary safety belt law; or
``(B) demonstrates that the safety belt use rate in
the State is at least 90 percent.
``(2) Withholding.--
``(A) In general.--For fiscal year 2007, the
Secretary shall withhold 2 percent, and for each fiscal
year thereafter, the Secretary shall withhold 4
percent, of the funds apportioned to a State under
paragraphs (1), (3), and (4) of section 104(b) and
section 144 if, by October 1 of that fiscal year, the
State does not--
``(i) have in effect a primary safety belt
law; or
``(ii) demonstrate that the safety belt use
rate in the State is at least 90 percent.
``(B) Restoration.--If, within 3 years after the
date on which funds are withheld from a State under
subparagraph (A), the State has in effect a primary
safety belt law or has demonstrated that the safety
belt use rate in the State is at least 90 percent, the
apportionment of the State shall be increased by the
amount withheld.
``(C) Lapse.--If, within 3 years after the date on
which funds are withheld from a State under
subparagraph (A), the State does not have in effect a
primary safety belt law or has not demonstrated that
the safety belt use rate in the State is at least 90
percent, the amount withheld shall lapse.''.
(2) Allocations of apportioned funds.--Section 133(d) of
title 23, United States Code, is amended--
(A) by striking paragraph (1);
(B) by redesignating paragraphs (2) through (5) as
paragraphs (1) through (4), respectively;
(C) in paragraph (2) (as redesignated by
subparagraph (B))--
(i) in the first sentence of subparagraph
(A)--
(I) by striking ``subparagraphs (C)
and (D)'' and inserting ``subparagraph
(C)''; and
(II) by striking ``80 percent'' and
inserting ``90 percent'';
(ii) by striking subparagraph (C);
(iii) by redesignating subparagraphs (D)
and (E) as subparagraphs (C) and (D),
respectively; and
(iv) in subparagraph (C) (as redesignated
by clause (iii)), by adding a period at the
end; and
(D) in paragraph (4)(A) (as redesignated by
subparagraph (B)), by striking ``paragraph (2)'' and
inserting ``paragraph (1)''.
(3) Conforming amendments.--
(A) Chapter 1 of title 23, United States Code, is
amended by striking the item relating to section 148
and inserting the following:
``148. Highway safety improvement program.''.
(b) Apportionment of Highway Safety Improvement Program Funds.--
Section 104(b) of title 23, United States Code, is amended--
(1) in the matter preceding paragraph (1), by inserting
after ``Improvement program,'' the following: ``the highway
safety improvement program,''; and
(2) by adding at the end the following:
``(5) Highway safety improvement program.--
``(A) In general.--For the highway safety
improvement program, in accordance with the following
formula:
``(i) 25 percent of the apportionments in
the ratio that--
``(I) the total lane miles of
Federal-aid highways in each State;
bears to
``(II) the total lane miles of
Federal-aid highways in all States.
``(ii) 40 percent of the apportionments in
the ratio that--
``(I) the total vehicle miles
traveled on lanes on Federal-aid
highways in each State; bears to
``(II) the total vehicle miles
traveled on lanes on Federal-aid
highways in all States.
``(iii) 35 percent of the apportionments in
the ratio that--
``(I) the estimated tax payments
attributable to highway users in each
State paid into the Highway Trust Fund
(other than the Mass Transit Account)
in the latest fiscal year for which
data are available; bears to
``(II) the estimated tax payments
attributable to highway users in all
States paid into the Highway Trust Fund
(other than the Mass Transit Account)
in the latest fiscal year for which
data are available.
``(B) Minimum apportionment.--Notwithstanding
subparagraph (A), each State shall receive a minimum of
\1/2\ of 1 percent of the funds apportioned under this
paragraph.''.
(c) Elimination of Hazards Relating to Highway Facilities.--
(1) Funds for protective devices.--Section 130(e) of title
23, United States Code, is amended--
(A) in the heading, by striking ``Protective
Devices'' and inserting ``Railway-Highway Crossings'';
(B) by striking the first sentence and inserting
the following:
``(1) In general.--For each fiscal year, at least
$200,000,000 of the funds authorized and expended under section
148 shall be available for the elimination of hazards and the
installation of protective devices at railway-highway
crossings.''; and
(C) by striking ``Sums authorized'' and inserting
the following:
``(2) Obligation.--Sums authorized''.
(2) Biennial reports to congress.--Section 130(g) of title
23, United States Code, is amended in the third sentence--
(A) by inserting ``and the Committee on Commerce,
Science, and Transportation,'' after ``Public Works'';
and
(B) by striking ``not later than April 1 of each
year'' and inserting ``every other year''.
(3) Expenditure of funds; apportionment.--Section 130 of
title 23, United States Code, is amended by adding at the end
the following:
``(k) Expenditure of Funds; Apportionment.--Funds made available to
carry out this section shall be--
``(1) available for expenditure on compilation and analysis
of data in support of activities carried out under subsection
(g); and
``(2) apportioned in accordance with section 104(b)(5).''.
(d) Transition.--
(1) Implementation.--Except as provided in paragraph (2),
to qualify for funding under section 148 of title 23, United
States Code (as amended by subsection (a)), a State shall
develop and implement a State strategic highway safety plan as
required by subsection (c) of that section not later than
October 1 of the second fiscal year after the date of enactment
of this Act.
(2) Interim period.--
(A) In general.--Before October 1 of the second
fiscal year after the date of enactment of this Act and
until the date on which a State develops and implements
a State strategic highway safety plan, the Secretary
shall apportion funds to a State for the highway safety
improvement program and the State may obligate funds
apportioned to the State for the highway safety
improvement program under section 148 for projects that
were eligible for funding under sections 130 and 152 of
that title, as in effect on the day before the date of
enactment of this Act.
(B) No strategic highway safety plan.--If a State
has not developed a strategic highway safety plan by
October 1 of the second fiscal year after the date of
enactment of this Act, but demonstrates to the
satisfaction of the Secretary that progress is being
made toward developing and implementing such a plan,
the Secretary shall continue to apportion funds for 1
additional fiscal year for the highway safety
improvement program under section 148 of title 23,
United States Code, to the State, and the State may
continue to obligate funds apportioned to the State
under this section for projects that were eligible for
funding under sections 130 and 152 of that title, as in
effect on the day before the date of enactment of this
Act.
(C) Penalty.--If a State has not adopted a
strategic highway safety plan by the date that is 2
years after the date of enactment of this Act, funds
made available to the State under section 1101(6) shall
be redistributed to other States in accordance with
section 104(b) of title 23, United States Code.
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